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Chef Solus and The Explorers Discover Food Labels
Happy New Year’s Explorers! We had a fun and healthy holiday vacation and we hope you did
too. We are now back and busy exploring the food pyramid. We decided to check out the west end of the pyramid looking for any new scrolls or nutrition games we could bring back to share with you.
We had some trouble at first because we couldn’t find an entrance into that side of pyramid. We searched for almost an hour but there were so many thick bushes covering up the walls that we almost gave up. All of a sudden, Tony called out, “I think I found something!” We all went running over. He noticed that there was a section of bush that had a lot of frogs jumping in and out. So we all began to pull away the brush in that one section.
I looked under the bushes and could see that there was a tunnel leading into the pyramid. That was how the frogs were coming in and out of the pyramid. I lead the way as we crawled on our bellies under the bushes into the pyramid. It was very dark but I had my flashlight and could see that the tunnel was leading into a room.
Once we got inside, we found the room was quite large. It was full of canned fruits and vegetables. Hmm. Why is this hidden in this secret room? Then Alex found a scroll tucked away behind a stack of cans and boxes. We all gathered around to hear what the scroll said. He read it out loud.
It was titled “Food Labels”. This ancient civilization was probably the first people to realize the importance of putting important nutrition information on food items. This way, you could read the food labels and know how healthy or not the food was. Food Labels tell us how many calories, how much fat, sugar, fiber and vitamins are in a particular food. We can get a lot of information from food labels.
The best way to use food labels is to compare foods so you can pick the healthiest foods. For example, let’s say that you are choosing a cereal for your breakfast. You can compare different cereals you like and find the one with the least amount of sugar and has the most fiber. Next time you go to the grocery store, help your parents find the healthiest foods by reading the food labels and comparing them.
To learn more about reading food labels, play the Ride the Food Label Game!
Well that’s it for this month,
Remember, have fun and keep exploring!
Explorers learn about Food Labels
Be careful of foods that say “Fat Free”. They could be full of sugar. Check the Food Label.
Trans Fats are so bad for your heart, it was added to Food Labels in 2006
Let’s get creative! Have a grown up print out the list of nutrient claims (in this month’s article) and try these activities using different foods in your kitchen:
- Find as many boxes or packages of food that states, “low fat”, “reduced calories” or “high fiber.” Look at the nutrient claims list, what do each of these mean?
- Compare two products that are the same such as two different cereals or crackers. Using your nutrient claims list, write down the similarities and the differences between them. Which one has more fiber? Which one has less sugar?
