CANADA – Health Canada, the federal department responsible for helping the people of Canada maintain and improve their health, has announced new mandatory nutrition labelling to help consumers make more informed decisions.

The new regulations require most food labels to carry a mandatory Nutrition Facts table. This will show the number of calories and the amount of fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, fibre, sugars, protein vitamins A and C, calcium and iron present in a specified amount of food. Until now, such labelling has been voluntary in Canada Some foods, including alcoholic beverages, fresh fruit and vegetables, raw single ingredient meat and poultry and foods containing insignificant amounts of the specified nutrients are exempt from the new rules, but most dairy products will carry the labels.