Behind the Scenes: New Cooking and Prediabetes Posters

Hey, do you remember that Chop Test article you saw a while back? How about that Prediabetes Guide?

If you do, then you’re not alone. Lots of people reached out and told me that those were two of their favorite posts. So many, in fact, that I decided to take those posts to the next level and turn them into nutrition education materials.

The Chop Test offers a simple and memorable guide to cooking with vegetables, so I decided that the key points would make a marvelous poster that could be hung in a commercial kitchen, posted in a health fair booth, propped up for a cooking demonstration, or incorporated into a nutrition display.

This guide to properly preparing vegetables is as versatile as it is useful. With a simple test to tell which kind of vegetable is best for which cooking style, this bright and informative poster will help your audience gain kitchen confidence while introducing new vegetables into their eating plans.

Will this poster make your life easier? Learn more about it!

Now let’s change gears and take a closer look at the new Prediabetes poster.

The statistics on prediabetes are astounding. My hope is that we can help our practitioners help people avoid diabetes entirely — heading it off before prediabetes turns into full-blown diabetes. This poster offers an excellent screening tool that is done in an engaging infographic style. With information on what prediabetes is, how it affects the body, what symptoms it displays, and what the average consumer can do to reduce his or her risk of prediabetes (or treat the condition itself), this poster offers a bright and simple way to educate your audience. Throw it in a display, use it to pep up a shared space, add it to a wellness fair booth, or hang it in your office — it will be a great educational resource for whatever you need.

This poster uses colorful graphics, simple sentences, and clear diagrams to appeal to a wide range of learning styles, promoting participant engagement while boosting information retention. It draws its information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), so you know that the research that backs it is supported by the latest peer-reviewed science.

Intrigued by this poster? Get the details today!

And, because I love ya, I want to share the handout that accompanies the Chop Test poster. Here it is, in all it’s glory! Download the free PDF today!

Chop Test Handout

We’re here to help you look your very best, right now! So which resource will make your life easier?

Nutrition Bootcamp: PowerPoint and Handout Set

Chop Test Poster

Elementary Nutrition Workbook

Compassionate Health Messages

Do you see your students, clients, or employees struggling in these post-pandemic days? Or perhaps you are stressed out yourself trying to get back to ‘normal.’

As healthcare professionals, we’re quick to point out how healthy eating and regular physical activity can help. We want to share all our knowledge. But for some folks, this isn’t the help they need right now.

The nurse who’s exhausted, the teacher who’s overwhelmed, the older adult who’s lonely, the teenager who’s anxious – they need our compassion, shown through messages like those depicted on our I Am… motivational poster.

Messages that emphasize that health and well-being is a journey. Every step you take counts, even those you take backwards!

The I Am… motivational poster gives gentle reminders that may resonate more with your students, clients, or employees:

  1. Self-care (sleeping enough, forgiving a setback)
  2. Healthy eating (eating mindfully when hungry, loving fruits & veggies)
  3. Physical activity (moving more, exercising consistently)
  4. Hope and positivity (not giving up)
  5. Intention (planning and working to success)

Don’t forget to be compassionate with yourself, too!

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

 

The Art of Advertising Healthy Food

Are you looking for a beautiful way to advertise healthy, fresh food? Our food art posters are the answer!

These one-of-a-kind masterpieces combine professional photography with motivational messages that will make you want to drop everything and go to the nearest fresh produce market.

Here are a few of my current favorites:

  1. Shine a Light on Veggies features a stunning still-life of asparagus spears. Asparagus is in season in many parts of the country, so what better time to increase its exposure with this gorgeous poster?
  2. Brighten Your Basket reminds you to fill your supermarket cart or farmer’s market basket with fresh produce like those pictured: onions, avocados, Meyer lemons, radishes, and baby bok choy.
  3. Bring the Farm to Your Table says it all with a beautiful display of fresh baby carrots, beets, potatoes, chard, and asparagus.
  4. Nature’s Fast Food’s juicy peaches and bright red cherries will have your mouth watering for these summer tree fruits!
  5. Grown, Not Processed is the ultimate advertisement for choosing a variety of colorful, fresh fruits and veggies. It promotes beets, garlic, peaches, fennel, radishes, carrots, greens (kale, lettuce, parsley), portabella mushrooms, and oyster mushrooms.

Framing these food art posters will give your office or waiting room an upscale feeling. But they’re also affordable enough to be used (framed or unframed) in cafeterias, hallways, and classrooms.

By Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD

New Fall Catalog!

Have you seen the new fall catalog yet?

I think it’s one of our best ones ever!

My graphic designer and I have been working on the newest poster designs for months! We came up with the concepts, created the photos, picked the colors, and then modeled everything. Then we rested. Then we assessed, re-assessed, and tweaked with the whole team until we had created posters that we were entirely confident you and your clients would love!

Let’s shine a spotlight on one of my favorites, shall we?

It’s time to Lead With Your Fork!

Traditionally, foods that you can eat out of a bag with your hands (including snacks and most fast food) are loaded with empty calories and devoid of the nutrients that you need for good health.

Foods that require a fork or a spoon to eat, however, are often chock-full of nutrients. Think salads, soups, rice, veggies, lean protein, etc. All this is a lot better for health than eating out of a bag!

We have created this amazing graphic poster, Lead With Your Fork, to help people visualize how their eating patterns impact their health.

What a great way to show how to put your best fork forward! This poster supports the messages of our two most important resources for education, MyPlate and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

  • MyPlate advises people to divide their plates between fruits, vegetables, whole grains, varied protein, and low-fat dairy at each meal.
  • The Dietary Guidelines for Americans maintain that “All food and beverage choices matter. Choose a healthy eating pattern at an appropriate calorie level to help achieve and maintain healthy body weight, support nutrient adequacy, and reduce the risk of chronic disease.” That means focusing on variety, nutrient density, and amount of food while limiting consumption of added sugars, saturated and trans fats, and sodium.

This health and nutrition education poster, Lead With Your Fork, helps everyone visualize a balanced and healthful eating style. It is also very light-hearted and positive. It would be great for nutrition awareness or health fair programs!

And of course, there’s lots more in the fall catalog. Which items are you most excited about? The prizes? The handouts? The books?

Finally, just ’cause I love ya, I’ve come up with a new discount. Use the code FALLSAVE15 to save 15% on any and all products!

Rainbow Chard Poster Story

Rainbow chard is not always the most common vegetable on every table but when you read about what WebMD has to say about it you might make it a weekly staple in your dining room or kitchen.

They offer 9 reasons to eat it and the best one is their summary of its nutritional benefits, “Swiss chard is a nutritional powerhouse — an excellent source of vitamins K, A, and C, as well as a good source of magnesium, potassium, iron, and dietary fiber.”

But we put it in a poster because we loved this image and the way the leaves reached up to the sky with luminous colors and shapes:

This rainbow chard came from a farmer’s market here in the Bay Area. The Huffington Post has the best list of benefits of farmer’s markets we have ever seen. They list 15 of them, which include better flavor and nutrients, better financial support for local farmers, and lower impact on the environment due to lower miles needed to get them to market, on average. I find that the best thing about visiting a farmer’s market is to be more aware of what is in season here locally PLUS it is inspiration for new recipes because you always see something new coming into season.

Here is a photo of one of my local markets and you can see the farmers and the customers are all engaged in the buying and selling process.

The rainbow chard that I photographed on the poster was picked early in the morning and secured into a big loose bunch by the farmer who grew it. The leaves were so beautiful with their bright green colors and deep red veins and stems. There were only a few bunches left so I quickly bought one and then I brought it home to my studio and took many shots to get the composition and exposure just right. It became part of my portfolio for an academic project and it was edited many times to make the cropping and light just right.

Many of the best lessons in nutrition are about colors because the pigments in fruits and vegetables are very beneficial. North Carolina State University has an online project about pigments and they summarize their importance with this note, “They are also important for humans, attracting our attention and providing us with nutrients. Major plant pigments include carotenoids, anthocyanins and other flavonoids, betalains, and chlorophylls.”

To make the poster photo I wanted to add a little more color to the chard to illustrate my message, which is to be brighter every day with good nutrition. This is not a statement but an important fact that is scientifically proven for all ages. Eating more fruits and vegetables was shown to slow down cognitive decline from aging for older individuals. Another study published in the Journal of School Health found that children who had a higher quality diet with enough fruits and vegetables were less likely to fail an academic test.

Judy Doherty, BS, PCII

References:

  1. Swiss Chard 9 Healthy Facts, WebMD, October 2010, Accessed October 2018.
  2. doi:  10.1212/01.wnl.0000240224.38978.d8

  3. Veugelers, Paul, et al, Diet Quality and Academic Performance, Journal of School Health, April 2008,

8 Things We Learned About Sugar

Sugar Math PosterWhen the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) released their recommendations about sugar intake, we thought they made a lot of sense. After all, the World Health Organization has been recommending a 10% calorie limit on added sugars for over a decade. The DGA committee now recognizes that sugar makes up about 30% of daily calories in our country, so changes are needed to cut down on sugary beverages, snacks, and desserts with added sugars. Treat foods and beverages are no longer treats but daily staples, which in turn is a significant cause of obesity when people are not getting enough physical activity and when high-sugar foods are replacing high-fiber foods that can help people feel more satiated.

Yet if you tell people to keep their sugar intake to 10% of their daily calories, this advice doesn’t necessarily have much real-world meaning.

People would have to do a bit of math to figure out how much sugar that that recommendation is allowing for each day. To calculate it, they would first need to land on a daily calorie intake. A 2,000-calorie-per-day eating pattern is pretty typical, so in our example let’s use that as a base number. 10% of 2,000 calories is 200 calories each day. There’s the maximum in an easier format to apply to day-to-day life.

Of course, some people prefer to calculate their sugar needs in grams. To do that, divide the daily total calories from sugar by 4 (calories per gram). For a 2,000-calorie diet, the max is 50 grams.

Just for kicks, let’s set that out in teaspoons too. There are 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon. That means that the daily cap is set at roughly 12 teaspoons of added sugars per day.

I hope those mathematical measurements can help your clients apply the DGA’s sugar recommendations to their daily lives. You can find all these measurements in the Sugar Math poster, which is what started this entire mathematical exercise.

Of course, the importance of sugar math isn’t the only thing we learned as we were putting the poster together. Here are the top 8 lessons that really made us think as we created that resource…

  1. One 12-ounce soda can have about 40 grams of sugar. That’s almost a full day’s supply of added sugar. Kid-sized sodas at most fast food places are 12 ounces — the same amount as that can of soda!
  2. Regular and large sodas at fast food places are usually equivalent to 2 or more cans of soda.
  3. Sweetened iced tea contains a surprising amount of sugar, roughly 22 grams per cup. Most bottles contain a couple cups or more, which in turn makes it easy to consume a day’s supply of sugar in one bottle of iced tea.
  4. Sweet treats are not only high in sugar but they are also high in calories. The average large cookie contains over 400 calories and a day’s supply of added sugars.
  5. Coffee drinks, tea, sodas, snacks, sweetened yogurt, and dessert can easily supply three days or more’s worth of sugar. It all adds up.
  6. A surprise to our team was that a can of soda is equivalent to a serving of candy!
  7. 50 grams can add up quickly, but if we could get to dinner without putting sweetened beverages in our day, then we had a little of our sugar budget left over for a half cup of frozen yogurt. In a typical day, I used the rest of my budget on a cereal bar and jam for a sandwich. Overall, the guideline helped us lower our calories, especially in beverage calories.
  8. It’s a great idea to track what you eat and drink in a day so you can make better choices.

And there you have it! 8 things we learned while putting together the Sugar Math poster. I’m really proud of this poster — it’s a great resource for nutrition and health educators because it lays out key lessons about added sugars in a fun and memorable way.

Want to share these lessons with your clients? From our collection of free printable nutrition education materials comes a new PDF handout all about added sugars!

Free Added Sugars Handout

And here are some other fantastic sugar education resources, straight from the Nutrition Education Store!

New Presentation Tips

I’m so excited because I’ve finally gotten the tools I need to share an amazing new resource with you…

A Sauce Painting Kit!

This kit features the 3 tools that you need to arrange beautiful plates at your next cooking demonstration or presentation. It includes…

  • Stainless steel sauce spoon – This special spoon makes it easy to arrange sauce on a plate.
  • 4 ounce squeeze bottle – Put a sauce that you want drizzled on a plate into this bottle and see how beautiful your presentation will look. Plus, you can wash and reuse the bottle as many times as you want!
  • Silicone pastry brush – The is perfect for brushing thick sauces on a plate so that your food presentation looks like it was done by a professional chef!

Now I want to share a few fun ways that you can use the tools in this kit to create amazing presentations for different dishes. Know that you don’t have to actually buy this kit to make the most of these tips — the kit will just make it easier. Feel free to improvise with resources that you already have!

  1. Add a sauce to an entree plate by drizzling the sauce over the top of your food with the sauce bottle. You can also use the spoon to smear a colorful and flavorful sauce on the plate before adding a protein item, or you could even use the brush to put a highly-flavored sauce on the plate in a beautiful, artistic pattern.
  2. Use the spoon to add a beautiful dessert sauce and then drizzle a design into it.
  3. Use the brush to brush a sauce across the plate before placing food on top of it.
  4. Use the bottle to create dots in the white space around the food you’ve plated.
  5. Use the bottle to drizzle a sauce on top of anything.
  6. Use the spoon to pull a sauce or dressing across the plate before adding your food items.

With this trio of tools, anything is possible! Plus, with this kit, you will be taking your cooking skills and presentations to the next level for you and your family and clients!

And here are a few other resources that would be great for your next cooking demonstration or presentation…

Tabletop Flip Charts

Here’s a collection of tabletop flip charts that can be used for student, patient, and client education!

Use them in employee wellness fairs, health fairs, exam rooms, offices, and classrooms. They fit on a table and flip easily to teach people important lessons about a variety of topics including MyPlate, diabetes, and cholesterol.

Take a look!

chart1

chart2

myplatechart

Best of all, these charts are very portable and can be used without electricity. They are hands-on because clients can read them and flip them at their own pace.

After all, pictures and infographics speak a thousand words!

Speaking of MyPlate, here’s a free copy of one of our most popular MyPlate handouts, just in case you missed it!

holidaymyplate-nes

And here are a few more MyPlate resources that you might like!

 

Resource Spotlight: Walloons

walloon_tomato_1024x1024

Here are some new educational resources that just happen to be both creative and engaging.

Walloons!

What are walloons, you ask?

They’re wall decals shaped like balloons. You can use them as decorations and teaching tools.

These wall decals come in handy when you want to add a little pizzazz to your walls. They’re great anywhere that you might want to fill in the space between posters, and they are spectacular in cafeterias, exam rooms, classrooms, offices, and more! I created them after I got a request from our dietitian customer Sonya Angelone, MS, RD, who wanted to perk up her children’s school cafeteria. They have been hanging on the walls there ever since. Sonya said the walls looked bare and she wanted to have some fun and positive decals that matched our fruit and vegetable balloons. We had these drawn up by our artist and Sonya fell in love with them so we made a special order of these wall decals for her. We figured everyone else might want some. They are perfect for walls that cannot hang posters or walls that need sprucing up or small places. You can even stick them on bulletin boards. See below for our directions for how you can make your own, too!

walloon_aspargus_1024x1024

There are several varieties of walloons to choose from. Which best match your style?

The What’s on Your Fork? Walloons are the newest additions to the Nutrition Education Store and are perfect for National Nutrition Month. After all, the theme is “Put Your Best Fork Forward.”

Of course you can also make your own walloons. Draw a balloon with a black magic marker on a large white piece of paper. Copy it on a copy machine. Allow everyone to cut and paste their favorite food photos on the balloons. Then adhere the balloons to the wall using a 3d removable poster tape. This allows them to stick to the wall but keeps them removable, too. Of course you can also have everyone take pictures of their forks for your social media channel. Be sure to use a hashtag that reflects your name so you can post them with ease.

And, in case you missed it, here’s another Nutrition Month resource: the printable handout that comes with the What’s on Your Fork Bulletin Board Banner

whatsonyourforkhandout-copy

And here’s a peek at these walloons from the Nutrition Education Store

Inside Look: What’s On Your Fork?

Have you ever gotten a bit carried away on a new project?

I know I have.

But that doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.

In fact, getting carried away on a wave on enthusiasm and creativity often leads to the creation of some of my favorite materials!

Take these fork photo resources, for example.

Forks!

I was experimenting with forks holding different foods and I… well… got carried away. I had just made a new photo studio with strobe lights and all kinds of props. As I played with each one, I saw styrofoam and stuck a fork in it.

The rest is history.

The timing was extra fortuitous for this particular round of inspiration because it turns out that the theme for National Nutrition Month 2017 is “Put Your Best Fork Forward!” These materials — which I have been creating since this summer when I was working on my food photo portfolio — will be perfect for that celebration.

Lettuce

Here’s a collection of the fork lessons in different formats. Which will appeal most to your clients?

Display Resources:

Prizes:

And here’s a closer look at my artist’s statement, which captures why and how I do what I do…

The concept of my work is that I create art with food and then photograph it in an evocative and dramatic manner. I am drawn to working with fruits and vegetables. The first reason is because my business is dedicated to nutrition education and the promotion of foods that are nutrient dense, high in fiber and low in added fat, sugar, and salt (three evils of processed food in the Western world). The second reason is because I love finding fruits and vegetables in farmers’ markets and coming home with them and exploring new and creative ways to photograph them. My experience as a pastry chef leads me to want to arrange my subjects in a very artistic manner and to create salads and many other types of dishes that appear decadent even though they are healthful.

The materials that I use consist of fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein foods that are fresh, in season, and available in local markets. I have a variety of props and backdrops as well as a light table. I have a full sensor Nikon D800 camera, strobe lights, and a natural light studio, also known as my dining room, which has a taller table for my shoots.

My process consists of researching and shopping in local food markets to purchase items from local farmers and food producers. I create a scene and shoot it different ways in my studio. This makes my shots more compiled than found and they have a theme for the viewer. They might be based on Mediterranean foods, phytochemicals, food groups, or just one seasonal ingredient like berries. The outcome is an artistic photograph that is inspirational to the viewer. It is a celebration of food as it nourishes the body!

By Judy Doherty, AOS, BS, PC II

As a special treat today, I want to share the printable handout that accompanies the Wise Choices Poster. Take a look!

wisechoicesposterhandout

And here are a few of the fork resources that you can get today!