Choking risk under age 4

In the body: Small, hard, round or sticky foods can block a young child’s airway.

Not rated by dose: a flag on 18 reviewed foods, among them hulled sesame seeds, roasted almonds and roasted peanuts. The list below has a line for each of 22 preparations.

Pregnancy, babies and young children. Stricter agency advice for these stages of life. Gram figures elsewhere on this site count a 70 kg adult, unadjusted for pregnancy, babies or young children; the advice here is the agency’s own for them.

All hazards

The reference value and where it comes from

The agency’s figureno agency dose value
Basisagency advice: choking risk for young children
Source ?Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations…

Reviewed foods that carry it

18 reviewed foods carry it; none is rated by dose. A food counts once, as in the foods list: preparations sharing a page (raw and cooked, canned) count once; one with its own page counts apart. Below, one line for each of 22 preparations.

How often you can eat it ?

No food here is rated by dose. Each line says why it’s listed: a flag for the people the source names, advice on handling it, or context.

Flags and context, not rated by dose

Almond butter
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Flag for children under four. The reason changes with the form: whole almonds are listed as unsafe nuts; almond butter is a sticky spread, and the guidance says peanut butter 'served alone, or on a spoon' is potentially unsafe and should be 'thinly spread' on crackers or toast.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: Health Canada infant-feeding guidance (canada.ca infant-feeding page, read 2026-10-21)
Almonds, dry-roasted
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: peanuts or other nuts are not safe for children younger than four years (choking)
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage: children under 4 years
Almonds, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: peanuts or other nuts are not safe for children younger than four years (choking)
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage: children under 4 years
Apple (Fuji), raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada 2025 · grade A ?
How it’s rated
For young children: raw hard apple is a recognised choking food; the agency advice is to grate it.
Intake: one 140 g serving a day, 70 kg adult
Measured on: Health Canada infant and young-child feeding page (page details 2025-10-30)
Brazil nuts, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: nuts are not safe for children younger than four years. A Brazil nut is large and hard.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Cashews, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: nuts are not safe for children younger than four years.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Cherries, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Life-stage: small, round, hard foods and fruit pits are choking hazards for young children; a whole cherry is small and round and holds a pit. Not a concentration.
Intake: not applicable (life-stage advice)
Measured on: Health Canada, nutrition for healthy term infants, 6 to 24 months, Choking and aspiration
Chia seeds
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: seeds are not safe for children younger than four years. Dry chia swells in liquid, which makes it a swallowing and obstruction concern for adults who take it dry; no agency statement on that was found.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Grapes, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Flagged for children under 4: Health Canada's advice is to chop grapes, not to avoid them. Grapes appear in its list of foods that are safer when prepared a particular way, and are not in its list of foods unsafe for children under four. Whether whole grapes should carry the under-4 choking flag is still an open call.
Intake: children under 4 (life-stage flag)
Measured on: Health Canada, 'Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations from Six to 24 Months', Choking and aspiration: grapes appear in the list of foods that are safer when prepared a particular way; they are not in the list of foods unsafe for children under four.
Peaches, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Life-stage: hard foods, small round foods and fruit pits are choking hazards for young children; a peach carries a large stone and firm slices are hard. Not a concentration.
Intake: not applicable (life-stage advice)
Measured on: Health Canada, nutrition for healthy term infants, 6 to 24 months, Choking and aspiration
Peanut butter, smooth
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: peanuts or other nuts are not safe for children younger than four years; whole nuts, seeds, thick spreads or spoons of nut butter must never be fed to infants.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage: children under 4 years
Peanuts, dry-roasted
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: peanuts or other nuts are not safe for children younger than four years; whole nuts, seeds, thick spreads or spoons of nut butter must never be fed to infants.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage: children under 4 years
Peanuts, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: peanuts or other nuts are not safe for children younger than four years; whole nuts, seeds, thick spreads or spoons of nut butter must never be fed to infants.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage: children under 4 years
Pistachios, dry-roasted
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: nuts are not safe for children younger than four years (whole or in pieces).
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Popcorn, air-popped
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada names popcorn: not safe for children younger than four years.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Sesame seeds, hulled
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada lists seeds among foods not safe for children under four; sesame is not named, so hulled sesame falls under the category.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage
Sesame seeds, whole
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada lists seeds among foods not safe for children under four; sesame is not named, so whole sesame falls under the category.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage
Sunflower seeds, dry-roasted
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: seeds are not safe for children younger than four years (whole or in pieces).
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Tahini
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Flag for children under four, with the mechanism changed: sesame seeds are small and hard; tahini is a sticky paste. The Health Canada infant-feeding page says nut butter 'served alone, or on a spoon, is potentially unsafe' (it names peanut butter) and should be 'thinly spread'.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: not stated in the draft
Walnuts, raw
Worth knowing
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: nuts are not safe for children younger than four years (whole or in pieces).
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage
Pumpkin seeds
Not rated yet
Health Canada, Nutrition for healthy term infants: recommendations… · grade B ?
How it’s rated
Health Canada: not safe for children younger than four years. Applies to whole pepitas and in-shell seeds; ground or paste forms not addressed
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life-stage advice for the category 'nuts, seeds' (seeds not named individually)
Chia seeds, ground
Context
Health Canada, Nutrition for Healthy Term Infants: Recommendations… · grade A ?
How it’s rated
Context, not a flag: Health Canada's list of foods unsafe for children under four names "seeds" without saying whole or milled; milled seed stirred into food is not the listed hazard, and no agency statement on ground chia exists. The adult dry-swallowing concern about whole chia (it swells in liquid) does not arise for a powder.
Intake: not applicable (flag)
Measured on: life stage