New Provincial Legislation Supports Healthier Food Choices
Posted: May 27, 2015
Categories: Food in the News / GoodFoodBites / Policy News
Credit: “What’s on the Menu? Making Key Nutrition Information Readily Available in Restaurants” (April 2013), City of Toronto.
Yesterday, MPPs from all three parties voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Making Healthier Choices Act, making it some of the freshest legislation that will support the reduction of obesity rates and other diet-related disease. This legislation will make Ontario the first province to require restaurants and food service operators with 20 or more locations in the province to readily provide caloric information for standard food and beverage items. Over 60 per cent of large chain restaurants in this category already provide nutritional information voluntarily to their customers (upon demand, on websites or in store). This legislation is a great step to building nutritional education resources across the province to encourage eaters to think more deeply about the food choices they make for themselves and their families.
The Act will also affect the tobacco industry by banning the sale of flavoured tobacco products, increasing fines for selling tobacco to youth, and limiting the sale of e-cigarettes.
From the Ontario Newsroom:
To make it easier for families to make informed and healthy food choices, the new legislation will:
- Require restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores and other food service premises with 20 or more locations in Ontario who sell ready-to-eat and prepared food to post calories for standard food and beverage items, including alcohol, on menus and menu boards
- Require regulated food service operators to post contextual information to help educate patrons about their daily caloric requirements
- Authorize the minister to appoint inspectors to enforce menu labelling requirements.
Access the backgrounder: Helping Ontarians Make Informed Nutritional Choices.