What do you think about the proposed new food-nutrition labels? Health Canada wants to know

The Nutrition Facts tables on Canadian food products may be getting a fresh new look. Earlier this year, Health Minister Rona Ambrose asked a bunch of Canadians what they liked and disliked about the way ingredients and nutritional stats appear on food products sold in Canada. The results were summed up in a report, which was published last month. Now, the minister has unveiled the prototype for a new, improved Nutrition Facts table. Aside from font and layout tweaks, there are a few significant changes. They include the addition of a separate “percentage of daily value” stat reflecting the total amount of sugar in a given food, and the grouping-together of sugar-based items on ingredient lists (so that complicated chemical names like “dextrose” and “maltodextrin” don’t fly under the radar). The change that’s likely to make the greatest impact, though, relates to portion sizes, which would finally become consistent among similar types of products. An online consultation process on the proposed new labels will run for the next 60 days, until September 11.