We wanted to show you our latest MyPlate creation that is great for the heart. Barley, Salmon, Walnuts, Vegetables, Olive Oil and more are made into a quick 30 minute meal that you will want to serve over and over. Enjoy!
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Balance Calories
Balance calories – Enjoy Your Food, But Eat Less.
During this quarter, “Balance Calories: Enjoy your food, but eat less” is the featured message from MyPlate. Last quarter we covered the topic, “Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.”
How many times do you hear the advice to “eat less?” Certainly one way to do that is to increase your consumption of foods that have a lower calorie density, like fruits and veggies. It helps when you also decrease your consumption of foods with a higher calorie density, like refined starches and oils. That’s why MyPlate urges people to fill up half their plates with fruits and veggies.
But what about the times where you are eating on the go, going to a party, or enjoying your favorite snack foods at the movies? We thought that a little MORE plate knowledge will go a long way towards helping you visualize portion sizes and calories.
Speaking of plates, how many calories do you think that you would save by switching the plate on which you serve meals? The transition would be from a dinner plate to a salad plate.
The answer? About half!
We used diced bread to test the plate size, portion size and calorie outcome for three different sized plates. Here is what we found:
Your plate is like a reverse piggy bank — the less space you have, the more calories you save! Check out our healthful plate tips:
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Make a healthful plate - Half your plate should be filled with fruits and vegetables. The other half should be divided evenly between protein and whole grains. In our MyPlate Makeovers, we saved half the calories in a single meal by following MyPlate’s proportion advice. In this experiment, 900 calories became 450 calories! Check out www.ChooseMyPlate.gov for more information.
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Use your plates strategically to help you eat less – Switch the salad and entree plates: Put 3 cups of salad on a dinner plate, then serve the entree on a salad plate. This change will help you consume 3-4 servings of vegetables and just 350-400 calories with two plates of food.
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Use a salad plate when you visit buffets. It will help you eat less.
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Imagine a B&B plate and eat just an ounce of cookies, chips, or other high-fat, high-sugar treats.
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The next time you order food, take it home and serve it on your own plates. You will eat less and understand normal portions better than you would if you ate out on restaurant china or from restaurant packaging.
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Use a salad plate for portion control with chips and snacks - one small layer is roughly the same size as an ounce.
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Use small sauce dishes for ice cream or low-fat frozen yogurt. These dishes barely hold a half cup, but they look cute and full!
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If you buy new plates, choose a set that has a smaller dinner plate. It will make a difference over time.
Take the plate test.
See how common packaged foods look normal in their package, but then look huge when you place them on a regular-sized (10 inch) dinner plate:
Would you really eat this many large fries? They more than fill a whole dinner plate!
And what about the large movie popcorn? It is enough for 6 people!
Here we have a large “mall” pretzel that fills an entire dinner plate. If you cut a one ounce piece it is a lot less that what you purchased.
And the giant hoagie actually fills two plates. That is not really a healthy plate. It would be better to cut the sandwich in quarters and eat it with a salad and some fruit.
Also on the link above: Free Handout, Free Poster, Free Game! Enjoy!!
MyPlate For The Heart
We wanted to show you our latest MyPlate creation that is great for the heart. Barley, Salmon, Walnuts, Vegetables, Olive Oil and more are made into a quick 30 minute meal that you will want to serve over and over. Enjoy!
2011 Nutrition Highlight Review
2011 was a banner year for nutrition education. Read the summary here of all of the highlights as published in Communicating Food for Health Newsletter. The Dietary Guidelines were updated, MyPlate was created to replace MyPyramid and help everyone make a healthier plate; supplement news kept piling high, sodium news was not surprising and much more.
Happy Holidays
Holiday Secrets contains the most creative, healthy holiday recipes. This is not just another chef’s favorite recipe book – it is meant to teach you how to make many holiday creations from appetizers to gravy to desserts no matter your kitchen skill. We promise you will have the most wonderful time making great dishes that taste great, look good and are healthy every time.
33 Things We Learned From FNCE
Our trip through the food hall at FNCE taught us 33 things. We found a general back to basics rule of thumb for most displays and marketing efforts. Presentations and marketing efforts were neat, engaging and beautiful and it was all about the flavor of food with a few nutrient benefits sprinkled in for marketing. Food manufacturers across the board offer “more for less” – more nutrients and less calories.
Fill Half Your Plate With Fruits and Vegetables: Labor Day
Food and Health Communications is proud to be a National Strategic Partner for MyPlate. For Labor Day we are bringing innovative yet easy ways to serve fruits and veggies so they will make up half of everyone’s plates! See Veggie Face Salad, Ice Bucket Fruits and our best Fresh Fruit Cobbler now.
12 Things We Learned From MyPlate
Here are the 12 things we learned about MyPlate after working with it all week. We read almost all of the pages on the USDA choosemyplate.gov site, performed makeovers on over 8 meals and created a slide show that is over 70 slides. We like it a lot and were amazed that it works even with fast food.
MyPlate
Take a look at how we tested MyPlate – we transformed a McDonald’s value meal from out of the bag onto a plate so you can have a better perception of what it looks like on a plate and then what happens when you make a simple healthy plate – we went from over 900 calories to just over 300. Voila!
New Food Icon Coming June 2
On June 2nd the USDA will release their new food icon to help consumers use all of the wonderful information presented in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Read more to find the live webinar site and the twitter feed!
Pea Shoots and More Greens
Pea shoots are larger than “sprouts” but not mature enough to produce peas. They taste like peas and have a delicate flavor; their versatility makes them delicious raw or cooked. Find out what we made from a trip to a local farmer’s market where we collected many greens.
Celebrate June
Food and Health Communications is celebrating 18 years in June which is fun because June is also Fruits and Vegetables Month!
And we have 18 free gifts and treats for you! Plus get a chance to win our new Joy of Health Poster.
Potatoes
To test my son’s hypothesis of satiety for his science fair project, each volunteer ate as much as they wanted until they felt full and the amount was recorded. To ensure that each volunteer was hungry and to avoid bias each volunteer was not allowed to eat 2 hours before the test and the test was recorded at the same time of the day – after school. The results were statistically significant.
Greens
If you are tired of romaine, iceberg and grocery store lettuce and greens, wait until you see the list of items we just found in a farmer’s market. Braising, salad, sprouts and so many flavors await!
budget meal »
Hidden Veggies Lower Calories
Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University completed a study that shows that hiding veggies in foods is an effective strategy to get people to eat more veggies and significantly fewer calories. We wanted to give this fun idea of hiding pureed vegetables in foods a try.
dessert »
Happy Birthday To You
My daughter’s school principal is requesting ideas for alternative snacks for parents to send
to school to celebrate their child’s birthday, rather than the usual cake/brownies, etc. Do you have any
handouts/suggestions that I could use?
myplate »
Balance Calories
Here are many ways to use a plate for portion control. Size matters. What you put on the plate matters. And using a plate to visualize how much you are eating is a great idea. We like to think of a plate as a reverse piggy bank. The smaller it is the more you save!!
on the go »
Stars Are Born
2 stars are born – our new iPad App, Salad Secrets, will have you making stunning salads right from your iPad – choose from 50 different ones with great presentation tips and nutrition facts. Plus get our latest kitchen creation, the Mexican Fiesta salad now from our blog – just in time for Cinco de Mayo.
shopping tips »
33 Things We Learned From FNCE
Our trip through the food hall at FNCE taught us 33 things. We found a general back to basics rule of thumb for most displays and marketing efforts. Presentations and marketing efforts were neat, engaging and beautiful and it was all about the flavor of food with a few nutrient benefits sprinkled in for marketing. Food manufacturers across the board offer “more for less” – more nutrients and less calories.
what’s for dinner »
MyPlate For The Heart
We wanted to show you our latest MyPlate creation that is great for the heart. Barley, Salmon, Walnuts, Vegetables, Olive Oil and more are made into a quick 30 minute meal that you will want to serve over and over. Enjoy!
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