National Standardized Cycle Menu (NSCM) - Your guide to making healthier choices

This is the second article in a series of three articles to highlight CAF Food Svcs Standards that help you make healthier food choices in CAF dining facilities.

The key to a healthy diet is balance. How much and how often you eat is just as important as what you eat. Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Food Services operations provide food standards that enable diners to meet nutritional requirements as expressed in Health Canada’s Canadian Food Guide. The national standardized cycle menu (NSCM) provides healthier choice menu options that can help diners maintain a balanced diet.

At every meal, CAF dining facilities offer food choices that align with Canada’s Food Guide recommendations to eat plenty of vegetables and fruits, whole grains and protein foods. Options are available to meet other healthy eating recommendations such as choosing healthy fats instead of saturated fat, increasing plant-based protein consumption, and making water your beverage of choice. NSCM menu options based on these recommendations include healthier soups, entrées, sandwiches, salads, breakfast items and high fiber bread and starch options. Choosing fruit or yogurt instead of cakes and cookies is the best choice for desserts.

The main characteristics of the NSCM are as follows:

• At least 1 entrée choice is to be a healthier choice;
• At least 1 entrée is to be a healthier vegetarian choice; and
• The third entrée is a local unit choice and may or may not meet the healthier choice criteria.

The healthier choice, lacto-ovo vegetarian and vegan entrées meet the following criteria:

• Maximum 15 g of fat (saturated ˂ 5 grams and unsaturated ˂ 10 grams);
• Maximum of 600 mg Sodium (Na); and
• No more than 400 kilocalories (kcal).