Docs, dietitians urge schools, hospitals to take processed meat off menu

School and hospital cafeteria menus are under scrutiny as part of a new campaign to reduce the amount of processed meats Canadians are consuming.

Doctors and dietitians across the country are calling for stricter rules on what publicly funded institutions should be allowed to serve.

“We’re serving processed meat in our schools, our hospitals — our public institutions, which really should be models and examples of good health,” said Dr. Zahra Kassam, a radiation oncologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

“We’re not saying to everybody, ‘you can’t have processed meat, ever,’ but we’re saying that public institutions should model the Canada Food Guide.”

Kassam, a longtime vegan, is the driving force behind an open letter that was published Monday that mobilized more than 150 health-care professionals to endorse recommendations to bolster nutrition and well-being.

The letter calls on Health Canada, as well as provincial health and education ministers, to phase out processed meats from health-care facilities and schools.

For more than a decade, the World Health Organization has issued explicit warnings about the link between processed meats (hot dogs, bacon and deli meats) and cancer.

The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer categorized these products as a “Group 1 carcinogenic” in 2015. There are currently 135 agents, including tobacco and asbestos, in that category.

The move was made to reflect scientific studies suggesting that eating any meats that have been salted, cured, fermented or smoked is tied to colorectal cancer. At the same time, red meat was filed under “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Physicians flagged those labels, as well as findings that consuming 50 grams of processed meat — the equivalent of a single hot dog — every day can increase an individual’s risk for colorectal cancer by 18 per cent, in their letter.

The document also cited concerns that red meat intake is strongly linked to heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and early death.

“Continuing to serve known carcinogens and disease-promoting foods in these environments sends a contradictory message that undermines public health guidance and puts our more vulnerable populations at avoidable risk,” it states.

The signatories are recommending a national education campaign to promote plant-based alternatives.

A community dietitian who works with schools in Manitoba said bacon breakfast sandwiches and kubasa are served in schools.

Clara Birnie and her colleagues at the Child Nutrition Council of Manitoba have been promoting egg salad, tuna and chickpea-mash sandwiches as alternatives.

“We really like to focus on the foods we want to add to the menu as opposed to foods we want to take away,” she said, adding that any bans would require “a lot of consideration” to ensure schools can create a “positive eating environment.”

Categorizing any foods as “bad” can cause students shame and disordered eating, she said.

Manitoba last updated its school nutrition guidelines in 2014. They call on school cafeterias to use whole cuts of meat.

Processed meats, as well as deep fried and battered foods, should not be sold more than twice a month, according to the guidelines.

“Measuring how we’re doing against those guidelines and having mechanisms to help schools achieve those things are what we don’t have and what we need,” said Dylan MacKay, an assistant professor of food and human nutritional sciences at the University of Manitoba.

As far as MacKay is concerned, the province should be doing regular surveys of schools, not unlike the ones conducted in 2006 and 2009.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the province recognizes that adequate nutrition is “a fundamental way” to improve health outcomes for all residents.

Asagwara cited the province’s rollout of a universal school nutrition program.

“We’re keen on making sure that we continue to build on that important step and that momentum,” the minister added.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca