It is rather obvious what we eat, and where we access our food has changed significantly over the past few decades.

In many ways I suppose my own experience is a textbook example of the change.

Growing up on a Saskatchewan farm through the 1960s and ‘70s the food on the kitchen table came primarily from the farm itself. The small farm was a mixed operation –most were — and that meant a barn full of pigs, which in turn meant pork was on the table almost daily.

When it wasn’t pork, the meat of the day was usually chicken, as my mother always had a boxful of chicks purchased in the spring to be butchered in the fall, a daylong event I vividly remember as one of those things which very directly connected the family to the process of filling the deep freeze.

And it was a huge deepfreeze, one that needed to be large because in addition to a butchered hog, and flock of chickens added to it each fall, there had to be room for carrots, peas, beans and other vegetables from a huge garden. If the deep freeze filled, there was always a root cellar, or canning to preserve more veggies for the winter.

Of course in that era everyone had a garden, as I recall helping my grandparents weed their rather large garden when they retired to town.

People, at least those in rural Prairies, raised and processed much of the food they ate.

Fast forward to today and mixed farms are largely a thing of the past. Most grain farms are massive with no time to raise a few chickens, or a pig or two for the freezer.

Gardens even are increasingly rare.

A drive around any midsize rural city, quickly shows backyard vegetable gardens are few and far between.

And, you can find more and more homes without a deep freeze to store food. It is much more common to make more trips to the grocery store, and to rely on pre-canned and preserved foods.

It would be interesting to study how many families today can their own fruits, freeze their own vegetables, or raise their own meat.

Anecdotally, I am confident to suggest it is a fraction of what there would have been through my teen years (1973-’79).

There are a couple of things we can draw from the significant change.

The first is that people today have a huge confidence in the food they find in stores. At times we hear of ripples of discontent in regards to food safety, but the majority recognize our food supple in generally safe.

The reliance on store-bought food also suggests we recognize our food is relatively cheap. Toss the non-food items out of the store cart, and food is reasonably priced.

But, there is a cloud over our change in pattern regarding where we get food, and that is if our processed foods are as healthy as what they should be?

Canada has a revised food guide that is less about what exactly should be consumed and appears more about an overall approach to eating healthy.

To accomplish that broader goal the guide promotes providing better nutrition information.

In many ways the vision is one of common sense with salt, sugar and saturated fats on the list of things we should reduce in our diets. This is largely reaffirming the obvious since there has been repeated suggestions we consume too much of the three, all of which when taken in excess have been shown to be bad for our health.

You might point to the reality of more store-bought, processed foods, rather than relying on our gardens, chicken coops, pigs or cattle, which is in-part the problem with more salts and sugar in our diets, but the reason is less important than the effort to change things.

In that regard we are likely to see more labelling to help make better nutritional choices.

Health Canada is proposing a requirement to declare high levels of salt, fat and sugar on the front of packages with warning labels. This is a solid idea because consumers will be able to see it easily, although it doesn’t mean it will change purchasing a great deal, as health warning labels on cigarettes never seemed to have a huge influence.

At the same time there will be greater effort put into children eating better, creating good habits early.

That effort includes Parliament working on a new law to restrict food advertising to children. Bill S-228 proposes to ban the marketing of food and beverage to children younger than 13.

The new law would largely mimic the Quebec Consumer Protection Act which has long banned advertising of all goods and services targeted at children younger than 13.

The United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden have similar legislation.

Canadian children watch a lot of television on a daily basis, and advertising does influence the wants and desires of us all, so restricting what young people see may well have a positive impact.

It might be argued parents ultimately make the decision about what food is put in school lunches and on the dinner table at home, however what children lobby for is often what they get.

But again, if the backyard garden, the pork, cattle, and chickens were filling the family freezer the options would be automatically different too. However, it is unlikely we get back to most people raising much of their own food, so we must better learn what to buy to be healthy. •

— By Calvin Daniels