pthom3000We all know that we should flipping that food item over and reading the nutrition label. But many of us are at a loss as how to ‘break the code’. But if you have had a look recently you may have noticed some things have been made a little clearer. That’s because in 2016 Health Canada started a five year transition period for more unified standards on food nutrition labels. A transition that was to have a compliance deadline of December 14, 2021. As with many other things, the full implementation has been somewhat fouled due to Covid-19. However, if you have had a look at a label lately you will most certainly seen changes as most companies are staying ahead of the curve of change. Main targets of adjustment have been: Nutrition facts; List of ingredients; Serving size; and Sugars information.
Nutrition Facts:
I was able to find some informative graphics on the Canada Health site that help to illustrate some of the changes.
Starting with the ‘nutrient facts’ label the changes include a more consistent and realistic serving size. This was often hugely misleading when calories etc were based on what would widely be considered a fraction of an actual ‘portion’. The % of daily values have been revised to reflect more current scientific findings. As well, there is an added a daily value of sugar percentage along with a foot note on what that actually means.
They have added potassium for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s been identified that most Canadians don’t get enough potassium in their diet and for another, potassium is important in maintaining healthy blood pressure. They have removed vitamins A and C because most Canadians get enough of these in their diet. It’s important to remove unnecessary information because it only serves as a distraction.
A big part of the transformation is in the serving size. For starters serving size will be more consistent between different manufactures making it easier to similar food products.
Like the above graphic shows; single serve containers were not always the same as the nutrients per amount. A tad misleading. Also leading into our next point; where the measurement on the container (in this case, 473ml) was not consistent with the nutrients per measurement (in this case 1 cup). Further having consistent serving size makes it easier to compare different brands of the same product.
More about measuring. Foods that come in pieces or as a fraction of will be labeled as such paired with its weight in grams. For instance the number of crackers may vary but the gram reference will be comparable.
Portion of food typically eaten will be the norm. Bread will be measured by the fact that typically people eat two slices of bread as a serving. This will also be accompanied by the grams for two slices of bread.
The goal is to make the nutrient information more user-friendly, thereby further enabling Canadians to take charge of their healthy eating initiatives. If you want to read a more in-depth description of the changes head on over to the Health Canada website.