Spice of Life Class 21, Fall 2012 – Introduction to Food and Nutrition
I.
Outline
A.
B.
C.
II.
Overview
USDA Dietary Guidelines
Assessing Your Diet Using SuperTracker
USDA Guidelines
A.
General Considerations
III.
Food Diary Activity: SuperTracker Food Analysis
A.
Part I: Are you regularly meeting your dietary guidelines?
1.
2.
Go to https://www.choosemyplate.gov/SuperTracker/
Create a Profile using the tab at the upper right of the page.
3.
After you have registered, go back to the SuperTracker home page,
log in and click on “Food Tracker >”. You will be taken to a page
that will track all kinds of information about what you eat on a
daily basis. Along the top of the page you will see boxes with your
Daily Calorie Limit (based on your age and weight), the amount of
calories you have eaten, and the amount you have remaining. To
the right of that, you will see your targets for Grains, Vegetables,
Fruits, Dairy and Protein Foods. We will ONLY be tracking the
latter items (not calories) for classroom purposes.
4.
Below the Daily Calorie Limit Box you will see a search window
for food items. To begin to enter your food for a day type the food
item in the search window and click on “Go”. When I type ‘egg’
into the box, I get 261 possible choices.
5.
Choose the form of your food from the list that best matches what
you ate. If a perfect match is not available, try again with a new
search term until you find something close. Brand names are not
always available, so you may need to just search by the food type.
6.
When you click on your food choice, the nutritional information
for that food will appear on the screen. The nutritional information
for my poached looked like this. Next I clicked on ‘breakfast’ and
‘add’, and the poached egg was added to my foods for the day.
Note that the nutritional
information includes the food
group (s) that eggs belong to
(protein foods), total calories,
‘empty’ calories (you get a
maximum number of these per
day), solid fats, added sugars,
saturated fat and sodium.
7.
Once I have added the egg to my food for the day, many
things change. My Daily Calorie Limit and Daily Food
Group Targets reflect the egg (note Protein Foods now have
1 oz):
My Daily Limits are now also adjusted. I have eaten 19 of
my allowed “empty” calories, 2g of my limit of 20g of
saturated fat, and 147 mg of my limit of 2300 mg of salt.
8.
9.
Continue to add food for the entire day and then summarize
that day’s information on the chart on the next page as
instructed.
Repeat for the entire week.
SuperTracker Worksheet
Print this sheet out and then complete it by entering the total amount (in ounces, cups or
grams, as appropriate) of each item that you ate, in the top box (in the row next to the T)
and then placing a smiley face (if you had a good amount) or a frowning face (if you had
bad amount) of a limited nutrient or of a daily food group in the lower box (in the row
with the smiley face). Next, Put a star next to the major food groups that you seem to get
enough of on a regular basis (you got a happy face at least 5 times during the past week).
Name:_________________________________________
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
a. Calculating your Nutrient Intakes
i. Now go to My Reports at the top of the page and choose Nutrient
Reports. Choose the dates for the week that you tracked, and click
on ‘Create Report’.
ii. You will see a listing of all of the major USDA nutrients. Write
down your recommended amounts and ranges, and then write
down the amounts that you ate on Day 1.
Minerals
Target
Average Eaten
Status
Calcium
Potassium
Sodium
Copper
Iron
Magnesium
Phosphorus
Selenium
Zinc
Vitamins
Vitamin A
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B12
Vitamin C
Vitamin D
Vitamin E
Vitamin K
Folate
Thiamin
Riboflavin
Niacin
Choline
iii. Choose 3 vitamins or minerals from the table that your diet lacked.
If you do not have 3 nutrients that were out of balance, do this
activity for the ones that were out of balance, and the complete the
activity with any others that interest you (up to a total of 3). Click
the little + box next to that nutrient name in the SuperTracker table
and answer the following questions.
Name of nutrient 1:
What is it (Brief summary)
What Foods provide it? Which of these foods are you willing to eat regularly?
What is its role in health and disease prevention? (Brief summary)
Name of nutrient 2:
What is it (Brief summary)
What Foods provide it? Which of these foods are you willing to eat regularly?
What is its role in health and disease prevention? (Brief summary)
Name of nutrient 3:
What is it (Brief summary)
What Foods provide it? Which of these foods are you willing to eat regularly?
What is its role in health and disease prevention? (Brief summary)