Last fall, when the Canadian government began consulting the public on its plan to revise national food guidelines, I wrote that the existing food guide had lost all usefulness and credibility because lobbyists and economic concerns, rather than science, had been the driving force behind their structure and content.

I wrote that we don't need food categories (other countries have done away with them) but if we retain them we absolutely don't need a milk category, and the "meat and alternatives" category should instead be "protein" that gives due prominence, given their health advantages, to legumes.