January 23rd: Day 11 – Canada’s Food Guide

When becoming a vegan or a vegetarian, you want to make sure you are still consuming all your nutrients and vitamins. Its not that it is more difficult to achieve these daily values, the hard part is changing in your daily habits and behaviors.  Below I have included information on Canada’s Food Guide, Canada’s recommendation for our daily values and some other interesting links. I urge everyone to look into these daily values for their own body.

Daily Values used in nutrition labelling for each nutrient:

Nutrient	Daily Values
Fat	65 g
The sum of saturated and trans fatty acids	20 g
Cholesterol	300 mg
Sodium	2400 mg
Carbohydrate	300 g
Fibre	25 g
Sugars	no DV
Protein	no DV
Vitamin A	1000 RE
Vitamin C	60 mg
Calcium	1100 mg
Iron	14 mg

Some specific nutrients that I examine daily are:

Protein – an adult women needs, 46grams per day

Iron – an adult women needs, 18mg per day 

Vitamin D – an adult women needs, 600 IU daily

More on Vitamin B12 – http://www.vegansociety.com/lifestyle/nutrition/b12.aspx

How much food do you need everyday? http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/quantit-eng.php

How many calories? http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/1_1_1-eng.php

Now a days it is so easy to stay on top of your calorie intake and outtake, as well as your daily values in nutrients and vitamins. There are many cool apps out there but my favourite is: myfitnesspal, it allows you to enter in the items of food you eat each day and automatically uploads the calories and %daily values, it also allows you to set goals but best of all, its FREE! 

Also, order or print your own Canada’s Food Guide and put it up on your fridge or somewhere in your kitchen for a friendly reminder http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/order-commander/index-eng.php, again it’s FREE!