Eating Well

Welcome to Eating Well! Good health isn't just about exercising your body; it's about what you put into your body too. Nutrition is a part of your health that you have complete control over. Your food choices each day affect your ability to fight disease, your weight, your body systems, and how you feel today, tomorrow, and in the future. Keep reading to find out how you can eat to maintain good health!

A Balanced Diet

Five a Day of Fruits and Vegetables

While it's important to eat a healthy diet, it isn't always easy to sort through all of the information about food choices and nutrition. In 2005, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled the new "My Pyramid" which replaces the old Food Guide Pyramid. The new "My Pyramid" is internet-based and more specific for an individual's nutritional needs. It can help you make smart choices from every food group, find tips for eating out, and get the most nutrition out of your calories. Visit "My Pyramid" at: http://www.mypyramid.gov/

• Grains are foods made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, or barley and include: bread, pasta, oatmeal, breakfast cereals, tortillas, and grits. Grains are important sources of many nutrients including fiber, B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, & folate), and minerals (iron, magnesium, and selenium). These nutrients help reduce cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart disease, improve bowel function, help the nervous system and metabolism, build bones, and support your immune system. (Taken during pregnancy, folate also helps to prevent serious birth defects).
• Any Vegetable or 100% vegetable juice counts as a member of the vegetable group. Broccoli, carrots, onions, pumpkin, tofu, squash, corn, peas, celery, and cucumbers are examples of vegetables. The nutrients in vegetables include: potassium, fiber, folate, and vitamins A, E, and C. They help to maintain healthy blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, keep eyes, skin, teeth, and gums healthy, improve bowel function, and folate helps to prevent serious birth defects when taken during pregnancy.
• Any Fruit or 100% fruit juice counts as part of the fruit group. Some examples of fruits are: apples, bananas, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, kiwi, lemons, limes, melons, pineapples, and raisins. Fruits provide nutrients like potassium, fiber, folate, and vitamin C which aid in blood pressure, cholesterol, growth and repair of body tissues, and folate will help prevent serious birth defects when taken during pregnancy.
• Milk products include fluid milk and many foods made from milk including: cheese, yogurt, ice cream, puddings made with milk, and frozen yogurt. The milk group provides your body with calcium, potassium, and vitamin D. These nutrients help build and maintain bone mass which can reduce the risk of osteoporosis, build strong teeth, and maintain healthy blood pressure.
• The Meat & Beans group includes poultry, fish, dry beans or peas, eggs, nuts, seeds, and meats such as beef, ham, lamb, pork, and veal. This group provides nutrients like protein, vitamin E, B vitamins (riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, and B6), iron, zinc, and magnesium. These nutrients are important for building and maintaining bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood, help release energy from muscles, aid your immune system, and carry oxygen through your blood.

Portions

How much we eat is just as important as what we eat. Each food group has a recommended amount of servings that a person should consume based on the serving size. A "portion" can be thought of as the amount of a specific food you choose to eat. A "serving" is a unit of measure used to describe the amount of food recommended from each food group.
The recommended amount of servings per day is:

• 6-12 servings of grains
• 3-5 servings of vegetables
• 2-4 servings of fruit
• 2-4 servings of milk products
• 2-3 servings of meat &/or beans

When you learn to recognize a serving size, you can keep your portions in proportion.
Here are what some standard serving sizes look like:

• 1 cup of cooked spaghetti = uncooked spaghetti measuring the diameter of a nickel
• 1 cup of pasta or cereal = 2 servings and looks like a medium-sized fist
• 1/3 cup of rice = would fill a cupcake wrapper
• a medium-sized fruit = the size of a tennis ball
• ½ cup of cooked vegetables = size of a standard scoop of ice cream
• 1 ounce of cheese = size of a pair of dice
• 1 cup of ice cream = baseball
• 3 ounces of chicken or fish = size of a deck of cards or a computer mouse
• 1 tablespoon of salad dressing, mayo, or oil = 1 matchbook

Facts about Fats

Fats are part of a healthy diet and not all fats are the same. A certain amount of fat in our diet is important to our health. Calories from fats should account for about a third or less of the total calories in our diet. There are 3 types of fats: saturated, unsaturated, and trans. Saturated and trans fats raise your "bad" cholesterol and increase your risk for heart disease. Unsaturated fats raise your "good" cholesterol and offer health benefits the other two don't.

• Saturated fats: These come mostly from animals. Examples are: butter, ice cream, red meat, or chicken skin. They are also found in some vegetable oils: coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil.
• Trans fats: These fats are formed when liquid oils are made solid. Trans fats show up in processed foods like cookies, cakes, and snack crackers.
• Unsaturated fats: These are listed on Nutrition Facts labels as polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats. They are found in olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, fish, nuts, soybeans, and flaxseed. These fats can help protect arteries from plaque buildup.

Orange, Apple, Peach? - Pick and Choose!

All about Soda

From a nutrition standpoint, soda contributes nothing to a person's diet except for sugary calories, chemicals, and a drug, caffeine. Sugar sweetened soft drinks contribute more than 7 percent of Americans' calories, making them the largest single source of calories in the US diet. The amount of calories in one 12 ounce can of soda is usually around 150 and there is also the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. To put this into perspective: If you continue to eat the same foods you eat now and add just one can of soda a day, it will lead to a one-year weight gain of 15 pounds. This is because when you drink liquid calories, you do not get the same feeling of "fullness" that you may have if you drink a glass of milk or eat a snack with the same amount of calories. Also, soda has so much sugar and acid in it that you may be promoting tooth decay by slowly dissolving the enamel which results in cavities.

Caffeine can boost your energy temporarily, and make you feel more awake and ready for the day. But a lot of caffeine can also lead to symptoms that you probably don't want and your body can't tolerate. If you drink too much caffeine at one time, it can make you feel nervous or jumpy. Your hands may shake. You may feel like there's something you forgot to do. And too much caffeine can give you a stomachache, headache, or a racing heartbeat. In fact, people with heart problems should not drink caffeine because it's known to affect heart rates and force the heart to work harder.

It is important that adults and children understand the importance of choosing healthful beverages. If adults want their children to drink beverages, such as milk, they should model that behavior for their children. The more often a child is exposed to a food, the more likely he or she is to consume that food. And, if you do not want your children to drink soda, keep it out of the home. Keeping it at home, without allowing children to consume it, makes it all that much more appealing.

Think about providing other beverages that contain calcium, such as:

• Fruit smoothies made with low-fat yogurt.
• Chocolate or strawberry flavored milk (These are good alternatives if you or your children don't like plain milk.)
• Calcium-fortified orange juice

Nutrition Policies

One way that we can begin to change our eating habits for the better is to develop a nutrition policy. Policies can be made for schools, the workplace, and public functions where food will be served. Policies can encourage healthy eating, ensure that healthy foods will be provided, and educate people about their food choices. Here are a few examples:

• Ellsworth School Department's Nutrition Policy
• Sample Workplace Nutrition Policy
• Sample Workplace Nutrition Policy (including vending machines & fundraising)