Healthy Eating

Healthy eating builds a healthy body and is important for maintaining a healthy body weight. Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods. Canada's Food Guide and other nutrition publications provide information that can help you make wise food choices. You can also use the Nutrition Facts table on food products to help you make informed food choices.

What Can You Do?

Eating well doesn't mean giving up the foods you love; it means choosing food wisely. Try some of the following suggestions when making food choices:

• Select a variety of foods from all food groups such as fruit, vegetables, dairy and grains;
• Emphasize cereals, breads, other grain products, vegetables and fruit;
• Choose lower-fat dairy products, leaner meats and foods prepared with little or no fat;
• Achieve and maintain a healthy body weight by enjoying regular physical activity and healthy eating; and
• Check the Nutrition Facts table on food labels to compare products more easily; determine the nutritional value of foods; better manage special diets; and increase or decrease your intake of a particular nutrient.

What Resources are Available?

In addition to Canada's Food Guide, the Healthy Eating section provides you with guidelines and references for pre-schoolers, children and women who are or are trying to become pregnant. You can also check whether you have a healthy body weight using the Body Mass Index calculator.