Canada's Food Guide
Canada's Food Guide is published by Health Canada. The current edition, released in January 2019, moved away from prescribed serving counts and toward a simple, plate-based approach to healthy eating — for everyone age 2 and up, including school-aged kids.
The plate model
Canada's Food Guide's signature visual recommends building meals around three proportions:
- ½ of the plate — vegetables and fruits
- ¼ of the plate — whole grain foods
- ¼ of the plate — protein foods, with plant-based proteins encouraged more often
These same proportions apply to school-aged children's meals and snacks — Health Canada suggests using them even for snacks, for example pairing a vegetable or fruit with other snack foods.
Core principles
- Eat a variety of healthy foods each day, built mainly around vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and protein foods.
- Make water your drink of choice, over sugary or highly processed drinks.
- Cook more often — preparing meals at home gives more control over ingredients.
- Enjoy meals with others — healthy eating is about more than food alone; it includes where, when, and how you eat.
- Use food labels to make informed choices and stay aware of how marketing can influence what we buy.
- Limit highly processed foods — those high in sodium, sugars, or saturated fat, including sugary drinks and many fast foods.
In the school setting
Provincial and regional health authorities and school boards regularly adapt the Food Guide plate into classroom and cafeteria resources — these are local adaptations built on the federal guide, not Health Canada products themselves, but they're how the guide shows up in day-to-day school nutrition programming across the country.
Sources: Health Canada — Canada's Food Guide · Food Guide Snapshot · Healthy Eating Recommendations