Check the Label

So Hubby is in school right now getting his B.S. in Physical Education and Health.  As part of his practicum hours, he has to teach a high school class.  The lead teacher wanted him to do a lesson on reading food labels.

Hubby is not the world's healthiest eater.  He loves red meat and starches in a box.  One of the first changes I made to my diet was to start looking at the protein and fiber in my foods.  Making sure I get enough of those nutrients is as important and keeping the fat and calories down.

Hubby seldom reads labels himself, so going through and creating the lesson plan has been eye-opening.  I've been telling him for months how there's "no food in your food," but he has just blown me off.  But I swear after this exercise, I can see the wheels turning in his head.

So the first part of his lesson will be taking about the different nutrients and the recommended quanties of each.  Then he has them look at sample food labels and fill out a questionaire about the different foods and their components.

The last part was my idea.  I pulled the following items from our pantry (sorry for the crummy pic):  

 From left to right we have ramen noodles, red lentils, brown rice, Kraft Macaroni dinner, red quinoa, and rice a roni noodles.  The lesson calls for spliting the students into six groups.   Then, as a group they would need to determine whether or not they thought the above was a quality food or not and why. 

I was big on the use of the word "quality" vs. "bad."  I mean, I like some Kraft dinner.  But I know it's not a quality food, so I don't eat as much or as often anymore.  I think we should think about food in its varying levels of quality, rather than "good" or "bad".  "Bad" implies that you should never eat something, but good, REAL nutrition seems to be about making quality choices overall so that you can have some less quality indulges. 

For me, sometimes nothing but a real Dr. Pepper will do.  And you know what?  I indulge because that's what it is.  An indulgence.  Not part of my regular diet.