Health Check - Criteria

Criteria

Products that qualify for a Health Check symbol must meet category-specific nutrient criteria: The amount of nutrients required is determined from the Canada Food Guide.

  • total fat
  • saturated fat
  • trans fat
  • fibre
  • sodium
  • sugar
  • protein
  • vitamins and minerals

More specifically the criteria is based on nutrients Canadians should incorporate into their diet such as fibre and vitamins, and also those they should eat less of such as sodium, fat and sugar. The grocery items are divided into categories related to the Canadian Food Guide food groups which include: Vegetable and Fruit, Grain Products, Milk and Alternatives, Meat and Alternatives plus Oil and Fat. There is also a category for food that incorporate more than one of these called Combination Foods.

The Health Check website has a list of criteria for the products, some examples include:

Vegetable and Fruit

Fruit juice must be:

  • made from 100% fruit juice with no added sugar
  • an excellent source of vitamin C (50%) or vitamin A (25%) or folate (25%) or source of fibre (2 grams)

Frozen and Canned Vegetables, both seasoned and sauced, must have

  • no more than 240 milligrams of sodium
  • no more than three grams of fat

Grain Products

Breakfast cereal must have:

  • no more than three grams of fat
  • at least two grams of fibre
  • no more than 240 milligrams of sodium
  • no more than six grams of sugar (excluding sugars from pieces of fruit) except if four grams or more of fibre
  • no more than five percent of total fat from trans fat

Milk and Alternatives

Yogurt must have:

  • no more than two percent milk fat
  • at least fifteen percent of the daily recommended calcium
  • no more than 140 milligrams of sodium
  • no added sugar

Meat and Alternatives

Plain meat or poultry must have:

  • no more than ten percent fat
  • no added salt or sodium
  • no more than five percent of fat from trans fat

An independent company randomly evaluates the items, on an annual basis, to ensure that products indeed meet the criteria.

Read more about this topic:  Health Check

Famous quotes containing the word criteria:

    “Every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation.... The domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs. They equate with one another. Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present, too. Everything ideological possesses semiotic value.”
    —V.N. (Valintin Nikolaevic)

    “We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice—however much we might desire it.”
    —Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

    “The Hacker Ethic: Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total.
    Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
    All information should be free.
    Mistrust authority—promote decentralization.
    Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
    You can create art and beauty on a computer.
    Computers can change your life for the better.”
    —Steven Levy, U.S. writer. Hackers, ch. 2, “The Hacker Ethic,” pp. 27-33, Anchor Press, Doubleday (1984)