More Than Meatless

How many of your clients or students say they follow a vegetarian or plant-based eating pattern – and think they’re eating healthfully – when in reality, they’re just consuming lots of non-meat processed foods?

Healthy plant-based and vegetarian eating patterns are about more than opting for the Impossible Burger with fries. To be healthy, this way of eating has to be centered on a variety of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains.

Teach your clients or students everything they need to know with our Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diet for Better Health PowerPoint show.

Who needs this presentation?

  • Students, from middle school through college, especially if they’ve decided to be vegetarian.
  • Adults, especially those who are newly diagnosed or hoping to prevent diet-related chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
  • Anyone who wants to eat more plants or try more meatless meals.

Items in our Plant-Based theme go well with the Vegetarian and Plant-Based Diet for Better Health PowerPoint show. You could put up posters (like the Plant Slant) or a bulletin board display featuring plant-based recipes that people can take with them (or they can take a picture with their cell phone).

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

A Big Thanks to School Lunch

National School Lunch Week might be celebrated October 10-14, but we think the dedicated people who feed America’s students deserve recognition every day.

The future of our country counts on kids growing up eating healthy meals, including school breakfast and lunch. Let school foodservice employees know how important they are, any time of the year.

Here are some ideas:

  • Students can:
    1. Create their own school lunch or breakfast posters (make it a contest or just a fun activity).
    2. Sign a giant thank you card and present it to foodservice staff.
    3. Write notes about or draw pictures of their favorite school meals.
    4. Give foodservice staff a big smile and say thank you!
  • You can:
    1. Take pictures of smiling students eating their school lunch or breakfast and post them in the cafeteria and/or kitchen.
    2. Encourage parents and teachers to write thank you notes to foodservice staff.
    3. Brighten up kitchens and cafeterias with salad bar clings and posters, like these:

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

MiPlato y la Diabetes en Español

Do you provide Spanish language nutrition education materials for your students or clients?

According to Forbes:

  • 13% of the U.S. population speaks Spanish at home;
  • Spanish is the most common non-English language spoken in our country;
  • The U.S. has the second largest population of Spanish speakers in the world.

That’s why you’ll find a variety of Spanish language materials at the NutritionEducationStore.com, including:

You’ll also find some great MyPlate in Spanish materials at MyPlate.gov. Your students or clients can take the MiPlato Quiz, get a personalized MiPlato Plan, and visit MiPlato Kitchen for recipes.

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Take a Swing at Healthy Cooking

With Major League Baseball playoffs coming up next month, join in the excitement by encouraging your students, clients, or employees to take a swing at cooking healthy meals.

Our Home Run Cooking book with leader guide and PowerPoint shows will make you a hit with any audience. Even cooking demo rookies will be ready to step up to the plate with help from the Professional Cooking Demo Guide.

Whether you hold a one-time cooking demo, offer a class series, or record a cooking webinar, Home Run Cooking covers all the bases. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • Batter On Deck: Start simple with a series covering the basics – setting up your kitchen, stocking your pantry, knife skills, food and kitchen safety, and different cooking methods.
  • Base Hit: Focus on one meal and run with it. Show your audience the many ways to get on base with a healthy breakfast, for example.
  • Fielder’s Choice: Add to your cooking demos with health and nutrition lessons, cost-cutting tips, a supermarket tour – whatever works for you.
  • Double Play: After you show your audience how easy it is to prepare healthy meals, send them home with their own Home Run Cooking Book or copies of recipes and handouts.
  • Perfect Game: Use the 50-slide PowerPoint show full of beautiful photos of easy-to-prepare meals to encourage everyone to take a swing at healthy cooking.

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Give Veggies a Chance

September is National Fruits & Veggies Month. While most people love the sweetness of fruit, many just don’t like (or eat) their vegetables.

You can change this by shining the spotlight on vegetables and fruits all month long with our posters, prizes, floor stickers, and health fair materials.

Here are three ways to get your students, clients, or employees engaged with Fruits & Veggies Month and, hopefully, convince them to give vegetables a chance:

  1. Take the pledge. The Produce for Better Health Foundation invites you to take the Have a Plant Pledge to add one more fruit or veggie to your daily routine for a month. Give extra points for those who add vegetables!
  2. Make friends. If you’re not comfortable preparing certain vegetables, our Slicing, Chopping & Cooking Guide for Vegetables poster (which comes with a free handout) will help make all types of veggies welcome in your kitchen.
  3. Cheer for the underdog. Stand up for veggies that get a bad rap, like Brussels sprouts, beets, turnips, and even potatoes. Find recipes in the MyPlate Kitchen, where you can search by food group or a specific fruit or vegetable.

Keep fruits and vegetables front and center all year long! FYI:

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Plant-Based Beats Processed

It seems like processed and ultra-processed foods have been in the news a lot lately.

While some people get mired in conversations about what foods should be considered processed (canned beans? whole grain bread?), you can’t go wrong by promoting a plant-based eating pattern that’s centered on vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains, and fruits.

We have some great ways to get your students, clients, or employees off the processed food track and on the road to a plant-based eating pattern.

1. One of our newest posters uses pictures to encourage nutrient-dense foods over ultra-processed ones:

2. One look at this poster (which also comes as a banner, stickers, and bookmarks) kind of says it all:

3. If there’s a health fair in your future, create an eye-catching display with our Real Food Grows theme materials. You’ll really get their attention when you wear our fruit and veggie mask!

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Free Handout: Nutrient-Dense vs Ultra-Processed

Habit Wheel Keeps on Rolling

Get the school year off to a healthy start with the Healthy Habit Wheel!

The Healthy Habit Wheel poster features four healthy habits for each category: Healthy Lifestyle, Healthy Food & Drink, and Exercise. While the poster is geared to students, the habits apply to adults as well.

Here are some teaching tips to go along with the Healthy Habit Wheel:

  1. The 12 habits make perfect SMART goals. Let students decide how they will track their habits over the course of a week, a month, or a semester.
  2. The wheel concept reflects the idea that you’re never done with making healthy choices. The wheel keeps on turning!
  3. You don’t need to tackle all 12 habits at once. In fact, that would be quite overwhelming! Students can master a habit and move to another one.
  4. Don’t compare yourself to others. Everyone has habits that come easy to them, and everyone has habits they need to work on.
  5. Personalize your Healthy Habit Wheel with other goals that are important to you.

Keep the Healthy Habit Wheel rolling in the right direction, culminating in good health for a lifetime!

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

September is Family Meals Month

Family meals have a lasting impact on mental, physical, and emotional health. Whether you work with children, teens, or adults, let them know that eating together as a family, however they define family, is important and do-able.

One way you can help families is to take the stress out of cooking at home. Teach them how to plan, shop for, and prepare healthy meals with our 25 Ingredients into 15 Fast Healthy Meals DVD/PowerPoint with handouts and leader guide.

  • Teach a class or series of classes for tweens, teens, or adults.
  • Offer a lunch-and-learn session for your employees.
  • Play the DVD in waiting areas and make handouts available.

Here are some tips to go along with teaching and promoting family meals:

  • Budget: Eating at home stretches your food dollars. The foods in 25 Ingredients into 15 Fast Healthy Meals are budget-friendly. Find more cost-cutting recipes at the Family Dinner Project.
  • Physical Health: Home-cooked family meals are linked to heart health and decreased obesity. Families get less sugar, fat, and sodium and more fruits, vegetables, and fiber.
  • Mental Health: Family meals are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and tobacco use. They give children more resilience and higher self-esteem.
    • Spread the word with these infographics from the Family Meals Movement and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
  • Time: Family meals mean less time in drive-thrus and more time talking, cooking together, and having fun.
  • Fun: Speaking of fun, get your kids talking with mealtime conversation starters from the American Heart Association and these resilience-building back to school questions.

Two more things to think about:

  1. It’s important to acknowledge that family mealtime isn’t easy for some people – there are lots of barriers, and low-income families are often the most vulnerable.
  2. Also, “family” means different things to different people. No matter how it’s defined, a family can benefit from dining together regularly.

Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Fun With Fruit & Veggie Masks

Get your clients or students interested in healthy fruits and vegetables with our new Vegetable Masks and Fruit Masks. These masks, and our combo Fruit and Vegetable Masks, are a fun way to encourage people of all ages to fill half of their plate with fruits and veggies!

Here are some ideas for using these unique eye masks with various age groups and settings:

  • Classroom parties: Celebrate holidays in the classroom by asking parents to send in healthy fruits and veggies. Use the fruit or vegetable masks as party favors, or let students wear the masks during the party.
  • Healthy birthday reward: Encourage students to bring a fruit or veggie snack for their birthday, instead of cookies or cupcakes. When they do, use the fruit or vegetable mask as a reward or birthday crown.
  • MyPlate teaching aid: Students break into groups according to which mask they get – fruit, veggie, or both. Within each group, students (alone or in pairs) are assigned to research a fruit or vegetable that appears on their mask.
  • Name that fruit or vegetable: Break into groups as described above. Each group must correctly identify every fruit or vegetable on their mask. The group that does this fastest wins a prize.
  • Fruit and veggie ice breaker: Use the masks to start meetings and group classes on a fun note!

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

Back to School with the Food Label

With the new school year, parents are getting back to packing lunches and trying to get dinner on the table amidst sports practices and other activities. Healthy meals start with choosing healthy food at the supermarket, and that means reading and understanding Nutrition Facts food labels.

Our Food Label theme has everything you need to create an engaging educational display at your next health and wellness fair. If there’s no fair in your future, consider incorporating some food label education into classes, individual counseling, bulletin boards, waiting rooms, or cafeterias.

Here are some food label health fair tips:

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD