Canada's Food Guide
Canada's Food Guide offers ideas and tips to help you eat well. Canada's food guide recommends eating a variety of healthy foods each day including:
Vegetables and fruit:
- Try making half of your plate vegetables and fruit.
- Fresh, frozen, and canned vegetables and fruits can all be healthy options.
- Replace juice with water.
Whole-grain foods:
- Eat a variety of whole grain foods such as quinoa, whole grain pasta, whole grain bread, whole oats or oatmeal, whole grain brown rice, and wild rice.
- Read the ingredient list and choose foods that have the word “whole grain” followed by the name of the grain as one of the first ingredients like:
- whole grain oats
- whole grain wheat
Whole wheat foods are not whole grain but can still be a healthy choice as they contain fibre.
Protein foods:
- Protein foods include eggs, beans, peas, lentils, tofu, nuts, seeds, fish and shellfish, lean meats and poultry, lower fat dairy products, and fortified soy beverages.
- Choose protein foods that come from plants more often.
- You don’t need to eat large amounts of protein foods to meet your nutritional needs.
Water:
- Make water your drink of choice.
- Drink water with your meals.
- Other healthy drink options can include:
- white, unsweetened, lower-fat milk,
- unsweetened fortified plant-based beverage, and
- unsweetened coffee and teas.
Healthy eating is more than the foods you eat. It is also about where, when, why and how you eat. Canada’s food guide recommends you: