Being Food Savvy

Pin It

When you read content on the Jamaican Food Savvy blog, I want you all to be able to feel more confident in choosing good foods and planning healthy meals, and maintaining a balanced diet. 
Now, if you want to do a short checklist, here are the things you should be able to do and if you can't, the blog posts that will help you to get there. 

You are not food-savvy if; 

1. You don't know your food groups. This is fundamental in order for you to be able to even begin thinking about meal planning. In the Caribbean we have Six Food Groups; Staples, Legumes, Fruits, Vegetables, Foods from Animal sources, and Fats and Oils. Your country or region may have a different grouping of foods, but you can use our food groups as a launching point to understand these food groups and their contributions to our health. Without this information, you won't be able to plan your meals or evaluate your nutritional status.

2. You don't know the difference between serving and portion sizes: A serving is a standard measure used for a particular food. It is the amount of food that yields a set amount of energy. For staples, a serving of any food belonging to that group yields 15 grams of carbohydrates. Therefore if you take a serving of bread (1 slice) or a serving of rice (1/2 cup), both being one serving will give you only 15 grams of carbohydrates. Your portion size may vary. So for your portion, you might choose to have 3 slices of bread. That is your portion, but you are actually having 3 servings of staples. All the food groups in the Eating to Survive series have a listing of the food and their accepted servings. Here is a little reminder

3. You don't know how to read food labels. There is vital information found on food labels and learning to decipher this information is necessary in order to make informed choices on the best products to meet your needs.

4. You are unable to plan a day's meal. Lucky for you, I have already made a video to show you how to do just that. You can find the video here. Not planning your meals can turn out to be very expensive. Can you afford that? 

5. You think that eating healthy is hard.  It is not hard, you just need to follow a diet including the six food groups as much as possible and you will be alright. Don't have any meat? Plan a meal with staples beans and vegetables.

6. You don't know what a one-pot meal is. In short, it is the most economical way of having a balanced meal. I'm a huge fan of one-pot meals, check out a previous article I did right here.

7. Dinner time is a lunchroom riot for parents of toddlers, small children, and picky eaters Why should it? Here are a few tips on how to help turn dinnertime into Funtime. Read here. 

These are just a few of the cool articles you will find around here. Feel free to look around and share whatever you like. Thanks for reading.