National Nutrition Month

March

As my kids were growing up, I went through various cycles of nutrition
nagging (”Drink your milk!”) and nutrition negotiating. (”I’ll trade you one
cookie for two green beans.”) To those of you on the front line
today, fighting the good fight in the nutrition wars and the battle of the
bulge, I offer these fun, educational Web sites.

Fast Food Facts
What an eye-opener! Enter your favorite food from your favorite fast food
restaurant, and receive its nutritional analysis: calories, fat,
cholesterol, sodium, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, and sugar. You can
choose from fifteen restaurants such as Dairy Queen, Jack in the Box,
McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King, or KFC. Some of what I learned was
shocking. For example, a Dairy Queen Chicken Strip Basket contains 1000
calories, 450 of them from fat.

Kidnetic.com
An educational program of the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation, Kidnetic.com is designed for kids nine to twelve and their parents. The site is divided into four sections. Move focuses on “wet head games,” you know the kind that require you to leave your computer chair and actually run around and sweat. Eat is a compendium of kid-friendly recipes. Talk gives you a chance to provide feedback, but requires free registration. Learn is a collection of short articles for grownups on topics such as how to eat heathy in fast food restaurants.

My Pyramid
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyramid has been recently revised to reflect the latest nutritional science. In fact, there is no longer just one pyramid. There are twelve different pyramids, depending on how many calories you need and how active you are. The easiest way to understand the new dietary guidelines is to watch the animated Tour My Pyramid. Click on Kids to play the Blast Off! game, and to print a simplified food pyramid.

Nutrition Explorations: Kids
Nutrition Explorations, published by the National Dairy Council, combines fun with simple nutrition instruction. Under Activities, my picks are the food group match games Quintricious and Tasty Tunes, and Feed the Monster, an arcade game with an embedded nutrition quiz. Another gem is the printable shopping list with headings for each of the five food groups: milk, meat, vegetable, fruit and grain.

“I do ALL the work, you get only the BEST sites!” Want to subscribe to the Surfing the Net with Kids newsletter? Every week, there are three site recommendations on a single topic. From learning the ABCs to high school physics, if this week’s topic doesn’t interest you, there will be something new next week.

More Surfing the Calendar

[tags]nutrition,fast food,international food information council,nutrition explorations,calories[/tags]