Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating

Whether you are trying to lose weight or just eat healthy Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating(2007) can be a great tool to help you plan your meals.

Here are some tips to help you improve your health, as well as achieve and maintain a healthy body weight (Dietitians of Canada, 2002).

Choose whole grains

Whole grain products will help to give you energy and increase your fibre intake.

• Use whole grain bread for toast and sandwiches
• Add barley or brown rice to soups/stews
• Use whole wheat flour to bake

Increase your fruit and vegetable intake

Choose bright coloured fruit and vegetables (dark green and orange) more often. These are filled with nutrients and contain fibre.

• Add fruit to cereal or yogurt
• Snack on fruit
• Include a fruit and/or vegetable with each meal

Include milk products every day

Milk products will help you achieve your recommended intake of calcium, which is good for bone and muscle strength, it also has preventative effects against osteoporosis as you age.

• Add milk to cereals, soups, puddings, and homemade products
• Use yogurt as a dip
• Add cheese to meals

Choose a lean protein

Protein is needed to keep the body healthy. Meat and alternatives are great sources of protein; they also provide iron and other nutrients.

• Use lean ground beef
• Try using lentils, beans or tofu
• Trim visible fat from meat
• Bake, barbecue or broil instead of deep-frying or pan-frying.
• Limit your intake of caffeine, salt and alcohol.

Sources
Dietitians of Canada. (2002). 5 Tips for Healthy Eating. Retrieved Oct.20th from http://www.dietitians.ca/english/frames.html

Developed by Lindsey Young in partial fulfillment of her administrative dietetic internship placement with Aramark Campus Services – MSVU in Fall 2004 and in collaboration with Student Nutrition Services. Aramark supports the Applied Human Nutrition (Dietetics) Internship Education program at Mount Saint Vincent University.

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