MyPlate Presentation - Reasons for Food Groups

Building Creative Lessons using MyPlate as a Teaching Tool?Take a Fresh Look at Nutrition? was a previous slogan for nutrition awareness month. It is designed to communicate the flexibility of nutrition recommendations, dietary guidelines and the MyPlate (formerly the Pyramid) as the framework for daily food choices. We asked Communicating Food for Health subscriber, Gayle Coleman, MS, RD, Program Leader, Michigan State University Extension, to share her creative teaching ideas for using MyPlate and the food groups.To demonstrate why foods are classified into food groups, make a large puzzle out of foam board, using a razor-type knife, showing a color representation of MyPlate. Use orange for the Grain Group, green for the Vegetable Group, red for the Fruit Group, blue for the Milk Group and purple for the Protein Group. Label individual puzzle pieces with key nutrients, showing which groups contain the most fiber. Piece together the ?nutrients? to get MyPlate and help individuals visualize the fact that they can meet key nutrient needs by following MyPlate food group recommendations.? Puzzle pieces can be adhered to one large board using Velcro(tm) tape.Bring empty food packages, food models or food photos (that have nutrition facts on the back) to class.? Have individuals find a combination of foods that meet 100 percent of the Daily Value for a nutrient, such as calcium.? Ask them, ?What types of foods had the largest amounts of this nutrient?? ?Approximately how many servings of these foods do you need to get 100 percent of the Daily Value??? This activity also helps individuals understand the relationship between the nutrition information on food labels and MyPlate.Choose a word that relates to what you are teaching. Select a food model or label for each letter in that word, each with a different amount of the nutrient or fiber you selected. For example, you might choose the word ?grain? and select five foods from the Bread, Cereal, Rice and Pasta Group with different amounts of fat per serving.? Then cover each nutrition information panel with one of the letters, starting with ?g? for the food with the lowest amount of fat and ending with ?n? for the food with the most fat.? Without looking at the nutrient information or letter on the reverse side, have individuals line the foods up, left to right, from the least to greatest amount of the nutrient.? If the foods are lined up correctly, when flipped over they will spell the word you selected.Introduce the topic of meeting the MyPlate recommendations on a limited budget by displaying sets of food and having individuals try to arrange the foods in each set from least expensive per serving to most expensive per serving. Discuss the cost of items that surprised them and work together to generate a list of the ?best buys? in each food group.? Costs may vary in your area, but generally, these foods are the most reasonable: store-brand ready-to-eat cornmeal and pasta, plain hot cereals, regular rice, potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, tomato sauce or paste, applesauce, bananas, kiwi, fruits and vegetables in season, milk, dry peas and beans, whole chicken and peanut butter.MyPlate For Families - Bean Bag TossPat Scofield, DTR, volunteered her husband to make MyPlate out of wood for her local health fair. Each group had holes for bean bag tossing contests. They created beanbags with different patterns and shapes of food fabrics for every food group. The kids had lots of fun with this beanbag toss game and the parents learned while helping their kids.The Dinner Time DilemmaWe asked Alice Henneman, MS, RD, what she was doing for nutrition awareness and she said she was going to give people fresh, nutritious ideas for the dinnertime dilemma. You can use her idea to do cooking demos, provide people with easy recipes, as a theme for supermarket tours, and/or guide clients to make healthier choices from local restaurant menus.