Health Canada is jumping on the sugar bandwagon…kind of

July 25, 2014

For the first time since they were made mandatory in 2007, the Nutrition Facts labels are getting an overhaul, and sugar is (finally!) receiving the attention it should. A few other long-needed improvements are on the list as well in an overall effort to make the labels more useful and easier to read. This is probably one of the most significant undertakings I’ve seen from Health Canada in a while!

Nutrition factsHere are some of the highlights:

Standardized serving sizes

Proposed is to make serving sizes standard across similar foods to make different brands easier to compare. For example, right now you’ll find yogurts sold in tubs with suggested serving sizes of anywhere from 1/2 cup to 1 cup, meaning you have to do a bunch of mental math to see how they compare, bite for bite. Once the changes are implemented, all yogurts sold in tubs will have a serving size of 3/4 cup on the label.

For some other examples, all breads will use 2 slices as the standard, crackers will be the number that closest approaches a 20g serving and so on.

This change gets a double thumbs up from me!

Added sugars to be itemized separately

Just like we now have sub-categories for saturated fats and trans fats on the Nutrition Facts label, added sugars will be given its own line. This means buying healthy foods like muesli or a fruit and yogurt parfait won’t set off the sugar alarm the way they do now; milk sugar and fruit sugar will not be part of the “added sugar” line, only the extra sweeteners will. (The one exception is fruit concentrate because, really, that’s just sugar.)

This is a huge improvement and I hope this will make it easier for those of us who wish to reduce our intake of added sugars to make it significantly easier to do.

The one disappointment I have is that while Health Canada is now including a %DV (daily value) for sugar, they have chosen to use the value of 100g of total sugar (20% of calories) as their daily limit, rather than the 24g (6 tsp, or 5% of calories) of added sugar recommended by both the WHO (World Health Organization) and AHA (American Heart Association). In my opinion, this is a huge copout by Health Canada in favour of the food industry; the evidence against added sugar is mounting, but without some guidance on specifically how much added sugar we should allow, the lines are blurred between added sugar and natural sugar and it’s much more difficult to know what you’re getting. I think it’s important that consumers see that their can of regular soda pop, at 39g of sugar, contains 140% of their DV for added sugar, or that a medium iced cappuccino from Tim Hortons (46g sugar) contains 184% of their DV. As it is proposed the numbers won’t look so bad. We’ll see the pop as 39% of our total sugar, not thinking about the sugar contained in the fruit and dairy products we are consuming each day.

Added sugars to be grouped together in ingredient list

As you’re probably aware, ingredients are listed on the package in order of weight, from highest to lowest; however, sugar has so many forms that, up to now, manufacturers could disguise how much is in a product by listing each form separately. Glucose, sucrose, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, rice syrup, agave nectar, cane sugar, beet sugar, glucose/fructose, and more are all different names for sugar. Many products are primarily sugar by weight, but when listed separately they don’t appear so bad. The new proposals recommend that added sugars all be grouped together as in the example below.

ingredient list Notice how in the above example fancy molasses is the second ingredient, after wheat flour? After the changes take place, fancy molasses, brown sugar, and sugar all get lumped together so it is blatantly obvious that sugar is the primary ingredient in the food. Just wait to be surprised at how many foods are going to be affected…

There are several other changes, all of which are well thought out and should serve their intended purpose of making the Nutrition Facts more useful. If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out this website. Better still, Health Canada is seeking public input on the changes until Sept 11, 2014, so click on “Participate now!” and you share your opinion. I did. Maybe if enough of us say something, they’ll use the %DV for added sugar instead…now’s our chance to make a difference!

 

 

By Renu Arora August 26, 2025
The Move That Broke Me (Literally) For the past several weeks (months!) I have been in the process of moving houses. OMG! The longer you live in one place, the more “stuff” piles up. I quickly discovered that purging under a deadline is exhausting! My advice? Do yourself a huge favor: let go of anything you haven’t used in years. Clearing clutter isn’t just good for your home, you'll feel emotionally lighter, too. Decluttering aside, after a big day of moving furniture and all the other heavy or bulky things that required a truck, every muscle in my body was sore. My back, legs, arms—even my wrist—were screaming in pain. Climbing one flight of stairs felt like scaling the CN Tower. I felt completely wrecked. At an emotional low, everything I tried took me 3-4 times as long as normal. Moving through life at half speed, I was really not myself. This was 3 weeks ago. I expected at least a few days of soreness, but weeks later the pain persisted. I hate popping pills, but I was taking BOTH Tylenol and ibuprofen every morning just to get through the day. Yikes! The Line Between Physical Healing and Spiritual Healing You might be wondering: If I’m an energy healer, why didn’t I just “fix” myself? Here’s the truth: physical injuries need physical time to heal. Muscles, ligaments, bones—they don't heal in an instant. The physical body is relatively fragile, and needs care to keep it in working order. That said, it is truly remarkable in its ability to heal. I’ve always said that if broken bones are able to knit themselves together in 6 weeks, there is really nothing in the body that should take over 3 months to heal. But when pain lingers beyond the normal healing window, it’s often tied to something deeper: an emotional or spiritual block. So, if healing doesn’t happen in that time, one should then look to a spiritual cause either preventing healing from taking place, or more often, preventing the pain from going away, even through the body itself may already be healed sufficiently to be pain free. When my pain stayed intense after two weeks, I knew there was more to it than just overworked muscles. The Subconscious Connection: Feeling “Old” Working with the subconscious means everything is symbolic. In my case, the pain and fatigue I was feeling was accompanied by a single thought: “I feel old.” That thought immediately made me think of my mother, who recently turned 93! She had just broken her calf while traveling—right in the middle of my move! While I took out time to help prepare her house so she could recover at home, with everything else going on, I felt guilty that I wasn’t doing more. Like I'm a bad daughter for prioritizing my own life ahead of my mother's. And my own pain was only exacerbating my inability to do anything about it. Healing With ART (Accelerated Release Technique) Once I recognized the feelings at the root of my issue, I used my own Accelerated Release Technique (ART) to release the guilt and shame that I had been carrying. While there was a little more to it, after about an hour of ART, the mental fatigue disappeared completely and my physical pain drastically improved. Thank heavens! While my wrist is still tender, that's on me. There has still been lifting and schlepping stuff from my old home to my new one, and this past weekend was spent setting up my son’s new space for his next few years at university in Waterloo (hence more lifting and schlepping!) so I likely have a physical injury that hasn't been given a chance to heal. The rest of me, however, feels like my old - young - self! I can run up stairs, bend, and move freely once again without pain. Yay! Why This Matters for You Pain does not have to be part of aging. The subconscious mind holds powerful keys to healing emotional pain, physical discomfort, and spiritual blocks. Once you release the hidden beliefs and emotions weighing you down, your body and mind can return to their natural state: healthy, whole, and free. I believe it is everyone’s divine right to be healthy, happy, whole, and abundant. And with knowledge of ART, you can take your healing in your own hands. Ready to Assert YOUR Divine Right to Live Your Best Life? Registration for my next ART Masterclass is now open! Pay your $250 deposit to enroll by September 1st, 2025 (midnight EST) and get the two prerequisite courses FREE: How Heal From Your Past ($199 + HST) Connecting to Your Subconscious Without Hypnosis ($19.95 + HST) Spaces are limited—secure your spot today! Join with a friend and you’ll BOTH receive $150 off the Masterclass. 👉 👉👉 Click here to register for the Masterclass 👈👈👈 Have questions? Send me a message — I’d love to hear from you! I hope to see you in class!
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