Experts in nutrition agree that these are the most important guidelines to keep in mind when you are shopping and planning meals for your family.
- Serve foods from all 5 food groups every day. The 5 food groups are grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, and meat & beans.
- Serve lots of fruits and vegetables. Try to serve 5 fruits or vegetables each day – fresh, frozen, canned, or dried.
- Especially dark green vegetables (like broccoli, spinach, collards) and orange fruits and vegetables (like carrots, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, apricots).
- Buy large containers of frozen, canned, or dried fruits and vegetables so you always have them available for meals and snacks.
- Serve some whole grains, like brown rice, whole wheat bread, whole wheat noodles, whole grain cereal, and oatmeal.
- Look for “whole” in the list of ingredients on the food label.
- Serve some lean meats, like chicken, turkey and fish. Beans, peas, lentils, nuts, and seeds are also great choices for protein.
- Try baking, broiling, or grilling meat instead of frying.
- Serve milk and other dairy products that are rich in calcium.
- Low-fat milk (1% or skim), cheese, and yogurt are recommended after children turn 2 years old.
- Serve milk, juice, or water at meals and snacks.
- It is recommended that children ages 2-8 drink 2 cups of milk each day and older children drink 3 cups each day.
- Limit fruit juice to 1 small cup each day, and make sure it’s 100% juice.
- Offer 4 to 6 glasses of water each day, especially in between meals & snacks.
- Limit high sugar drinks, like fruit punch, Kool-Aid, soda, or sports drinks.
- Limit high fat snack foods, like chips, crackers, or french fries. These foods can be offered occasionally at meals or snacks along with other healthy foods.
- Limit “fast food” to no more than one time per week.
- Limit high sugar foods, like candy, cake, pudding, donuts or ice cream. If your child eats a variety of healthy foods, it’s fine to offer one sweet per day.
For more information click on the following links:
Food Stoplight
Food Pyramid
Cooking with Kids
Healthy Recipes
Food Stoplight
Children learning about "go and grow" foods
A food stoplight is a great way to help kids learn about healthy and unhealthy foods. To introduce this idea to your kids, you can start by pointing out stoplights and talking about how “Green means Go!” and “Yellow means Slow.” Then explain to your child that the stoplight can help us learn about different kinds of foods too. “Green means Go and Grow” - these foods are good for our bodies, give us lots of energy, and help our bodies grow up to be healthy and strong. “Yellow means Slow” - these foods might taste good, but if we eat too many of them, they will make us feel tired and slow. Here is a list of different kinds of Go and Grow foods and Slow foods. You can put this on your refrigerator and check it whenever you and your children eat. This list is just a start so you and your children can add new Go and Grow foods that you try.
These ideas are adapted from Marian Fitzgibbon, Melinda Stolley, and colleagues’ Hip Hop to Health Jr. program and Leonard Epstein and colleagues’ nutrition education program.
Food
Pyramid
You have probably seen some version of the Food Pyramid on a box of cereal or crackers or on a poster or brochure. The Food Pyramid is a symbol to show that foods from all food groups are needed for a balanced diet and good health.
- Variety. The different color bands represent the 5 food groups. Orange is for grains, green is for vegetables, red is for fruits, the thin yellow line represents oil (oil is not considered a food group but children need some oil for good health), blue is for dairy, and purple is for meat and beans.
- Balance. At the bottom of the pyramid, the colors are wider for grains, vegetables, fruits, and dairy – and the colors are thinner for oils and meat and beans. The width of the colors suggests how much food children should be served from each food group.
- Moderation. The pyramid shape is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top. The wide base stands for foods in each group that have little or no solid fats or added sugars – these foods should be served more often. The narrow point at the top stands for foods that have more solid fats or added sugars – these foods should be served less often. For example:
- In the grains group, this means that you should serve cereal without added sugar more often than you serve sugar cereal.
- In the dairy group, this means that you should serve low-fat milk more often than you serve whole milk (or milk products).
- In the meat and beans group, this means that you should serve lean protein like chicken or beans more often than you serve red meat that is higher in fat.
Here is a link to the most recent Food Pyramid for Kids at www.MyPyramid.gov
The MyPyramid website also includes sample menus and individualized tracking of nutritional intake and physical activity.
Cooking with Kids
Cook
a special meal with your child. Tell your child a story about how
this meal fits into your family’s traditions. Children are
more likely to eat healthy foods if they’re involved in preparing
the meal. Young children can peel some fruits and vegetables (like
bananas or onions), mash soft fruits and vegetables, cut soft foods
with a plastic knife (like mushrooms or hard boiled eggs), measure
dry ingredients, or beat eggs. Older children can help plan the meal
and shop for ingredients, read and follow a recipe, measure ingredients,
and operate the electric mixer.
Here are some great websites to get you started cooking with your kids!
Cafe Zoom - PBS Kids
A large collection of all the recipes from the TV
series ZOOM. The recipes are rated by the ZOOM audience and
there is a picture of each finished recipe. This site also
includes 50 handpicked recipes for younger kids aged 3 - 6
years old.
Cooking With Children: Kids In The Kitchen
A site with tips, guidelines and recipes for cooking with 2
to 5 year old children from the National Network for Child Care.
Food for Kids - Whole Foods Market
Recipes that taste great and are easy to make. The site also
includes helpful hints.
Healthy Recipes
Here are some links to sites with healthy recipes for your family to enjoy…
Chef Ann Lunch Lessons: Healthy Recipes
http://www.lunchlessons.org/html_v2/recipes.html
Recipes from A Healthier You
(Based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005)
http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/
healthieryou/html/recipes.html
5 a Day Recipes
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/dnparecipe/recipesearch.aspx
Stay Young at Heart: Cooking the Heart-Healthy Way
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/other/syah/index.htm