Food Safety for Kids

At Maple Leaf, our We Take Care™ promise is our assurance to you that we do everything we can to make our products safe for you and your family. Just as we take precautions to ensure our products are safe, we encourage you to take precautions while cooking, storing and eating food.

Eating safely is particularly important when meal times include small children. Here are some tips to take care with your children during meal times.

Safer Eating Tips:

• Let your children know that eating is serious business. Teach children to remain seated and calm while they are eating. They will be less likely to choke on their food.
• Create fun placemats with them that contain key choking prevention messages.This is a great way to remind your children to:
  • take small bites
  • chew food thoroughly
  • not run or play while eating
  • only put food in their mouth
• Don't give small children difficult-to-eat foods in whole form. Cut spongy compressible foods (like hotdogs, meats, cheeses) into thin strips, and then cut those strips into small pieces. If pieces of food are too big, they can plug your child’s airway.
• Do not give nuts, popcorn, gum, or hard candy to children under four.
• Take care to remove all bones from meat and fish before serving it to your child.
• Know the signs of choking: ineffective coughing, inability to speak or cry, high-pitched noises, and bluish lips, nails, and skin.
• Learn first aid to help a baby or child who is choking. (St. John Ambulance and the Canadian Red Cross offer first aid programs developed specifically for tending to children.)

Remember:

• Supervise children under the age of four while they are being fed.
• Babies, toddlers, and young children can choke if food or small objects stick in their throats and block their breathing.
• Babies can choke because they have undeveloped throat muscles and small airways.
• Toddlers are at risk because they tend to put things in their mouths. They do not have all their teeth and cannot chew large pieces of food.
• Anaesthetics applied to your child's gum to numb the pain of teething make it difficult for her/him to eat foods that require chewing.