Healthy Living - Eating and Drinking - The Tick

Tick in the Supermarket

The Heart Foundation Tick continues to be the symbol you can trust to easily make healthier food choices in your supermarket. All foods with the Tick must pass a strict auditing process in order to be allowed to display the Tick - no exceptions.

There's a Tick alternative to most of the foods you eat every day. In fact, there are around 1200 foods across more than 50 supermarket categories. But broadly, all foods with the Tick fit into three groups.

Fresh foods like eggs, lean meat and poultry, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds.
Everyday foods or staples such as bread, margarine, breakfast cereals and yoghurt.
Occasional foods like pies, oven fries and ice cream.

Foods with the Heart Foundation Tick undergo the most rigorous independent auditing of foods sold in Australian supermarkets.

Heart Foundation Tick on fresh foods

Although these foods are naturally healthy, some people may be unsure about their role in a healthy diet. These foods include avocados, eggs, nuts, lean meat and fruit and vegetables. The Tick on these foods reminds shoppers to include them as part of a healthy eating plan.

Heart Foundation Tick on everyday foods

These are the foods that many of us eat every day and can't imagine life without. They include bread and breakfast cereals, milk and yoghurt, pasta, rice and noodles, canned fish and baked beans and many others.

In these categories, there can be so many choices it can be difficult to spot the brands that are better for you. The Heart Foundation Tick on these foods makes it quick and easy to spot the healthier choices. And because we eat them most days, it's important that those proven healthier choices are easier to spot.

Occasional foods

These are the foods we like to eat occasionally. Most of us like to indulge from time to time, so the Heart Foundation Tick challenges food companies to meet our standards and provide healthier choices amongst these types of foods too.

So while your favourite ice cream or pies may have the Heart Foundation Tick, we recommend you still consider them occasional foods, not everyday foods.

Tips for Healthy Shopping

The Heart Foundation has joined forces with Australian Good Taste and the Australian Women's Weekly to provide some help for what to look for in the supermarket.

The following PDF files from Australian Good Taste and healthy shopping tips from the Australian Women's Weekly give you easy to understand info on some of the most common areas for today's shoppers.