Health Check was a certification program operated by the

Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada is a Canadian charity dedicated to advocacy, education, and the funding of research surrounding heart disease and stroke. Nomenclature In November 2016, the organization re-branded as Heart & Stroke a ...

. First established in 1999, the program allowed food products that met predetermined nutritional guidelines to be marketed using a Health Check seal, identifying the product as being endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Distributors and restaurants were required to pay a fee to the Heart and Stroke Foundation to

license A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

the logo. The Health Check program was discontinued in 2014; the program had been criticized by University of Ottawa professor

Yoni Freedhoff Yoni Freedhoff is an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa. He is also a founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, a for-profit, non-surgical weight management clinic. Education and career Freedh ...

for endorsing products with high

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and

sodium Sodium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Na (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 element, group 1 of the peri ...

contents as purportedly being healthy options. __TOC__

Criteria

Products that qualify for a Health Check symbol must meet category-specific nutrient criteria:Helping You Eat Well , Heart & Stroke Health Check Program
/ref> The amount of nutrients required is determined from the Canada Food Guide. * total

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specif ...

saturated fat A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds between the carbon atoms. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone, and fatty acids that each cont ...

trans fat Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in foods. Small amounts of trans fats occur naturally, but large amounts are found in some processed foods made with partially hydrogenated oils. Because consumption of trans fats is associated ...

fibre Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorp ...

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...

vitamins Vitamins are organic molecules (or a set of closely related molecules called vitamers) that are essential to an organism in small quantities for proper metabolic function. Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism in suff ...

and

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): M ...

More specifically the criteria are based on nutrients Canadians should incorporate into their diet such as fibre and vitamins, and also those they should eat less of such as sodium, fat and sugar.FAQ , Heart & Stroke Health Check Program
/ref> The grocery items are divided into categories related to the Canadian Food Guide food groups which include: Vegetable and Fruit, Grain Products, Milk and Alternatives, Meat and Alternatives plus Oil and Fat. There is also a category for food that incorporate more than one of these called Combination Foods. The Health Check website has a list of criteria for the products, some examples include: Vegetable and Fruit

Fruit juice Juice is a drink made from the extraction or pressing of the natural liquid contained in fruit and vegetables. It can also refer to liquids that are flavored with concentrate or other biological food sources, such as meat or seafood, such ...

must be: * made from 100% fruit juice with no

added sugar Added sugars or free sugars are sugar carbohydrates (caloric sweeteners) added to food and beverages at some point before their consumption. These include added carbohydrates ( monosaccharides and disaccharides), and more broadly, sugars nat ...

* an excellent source of

vitamin C Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits, berries and vegetables. It is also a generic prescription medication and in some countries is sold as a non-prescription di ...

(50%) or

vitamin A Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is an essential nutrient. The term "vitamin A" encompasses a group of chemically related organic compounds that includes retinol, retinyl esters, and several provitamin (precursor) carotenoids, most not ...

(25%) or

folate Folate, also known as vitamin B9 and folacin, is one of the B vitamins. Manufactured folic acid, which is converted into folate by the body, is used as a dietary supplement and in food fortification as it is more stable during processing and ...

(25%) or source of

(2 grams) Frozen and Canned

Vegetables Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including flowers, fruits, ...

, both seasoned and sauced, must have * no more than 240 milligrams of

* no more than three grams of

Grain Products Breakfast

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

must have: * no more than three grams of

* at least two grams of

* no more than 240 milligrams of

* no more than six grams of

(excluding sugars from pieces of fruit) except if four grams or more of

* no more than five percent of total

from

Milk and Alternatives

Yogurt Yogurt (; , from , ; also spelled yoghurt, yogourt or yoghourt) is a food produced by bacterial Fermentation (food), fermentation of milk. Fermentation of sugars in the milk by these bacteria produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to ...

must have: * no more than two percent

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...

* at least fifteen percent of the daily recommended

calcium Calcium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to it ...

* no more than 140 milligrams of

* no added

Meat and Alternatives Plain

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

must have: * no more than ten percent

* no added salt or

* no more than five percent of

from

An independent company randomly evaluates the items, on an annual basis, to ensure that products indeed meet the criteria.

Criticism

The Health Check program was criticized for giving misleading endorsements to unhealthy products. Obesity expert and

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

assistant professor Dr. Yoni Freedhoff was a notable critic of the program, having criticized it for endorsing products with high sugar and sodium contents. In 2012, he criticized the program's endorsement of products from Canadian fast food burger chain

Harvey's Harvey's is a fast food restaurant chain operating in Canada, with locations in every province except British Columbia. It serves hamburgers, poutine, hot dogs, french fries, onion rings, and other traditional Canadian cuisine, Canadian fast-food ...

with the seal. While endorsed for protein and vegetable contents and use of multi-grain buns, Freedhoff pointed out that the endorsed grilled veggie and grilled chicken burgers respectively contained 930 and 950 mg of sodium, "virtually half of recommended daily intake." The following year, he criticized the program for endorsing

Sun-Rype Sun-Rype Products Ltd. is a Western Canadian fruit-based food and beverage manufacturer. Since its foundation in 1946, Sun-Rype has been producing juices and fruit snacks based in Kelowna, British Columbia, in the Okanagan. History Incorporat ...

's Fruitsource Fruit Bites product despite its high sugar content. He argued that "abusing the public's trust to sell candy to kids under the guise of fruit is not what the Heart and Stroke Foundation is supposed to be doing". These issues were a factor in the discontinuation of the program in 2014. Program director Terry Dean felt that the Health Check model had become outdated and "just didn’t allow us to have the footprint that we needed". He stated that the Heart and Stroke Foundation would shift its focus towards "broader" advocacy at the corporate and government levels.

References

{{reflist, 30em Food retailing Health campaigns 1999 establishments in Canada