Adapting meals and diets

Adapting meals and diets

​Activity

Your local supermarket has asked you to design a leaflet for them to display at the checkout. The leaflet is to be about how people can adapt meals and diets. Use the information above to help you design your leaflet. Include some information on buying, preparing and cooking food. Remember to pick out a few key points for each part. Make your leaflet attractive so customers will pick it up and read it.

1.FOLLOWING THE DIETARY GUIDELINES

Here is a reminder of the dietary guidelines:
•Base your meals on starchy foods.
•Eat lots of fruit and vegetables.
• Eat more fish.
• Cut down on saturated fat and sugar.
• Try to eat less salt – no more than 6g a day.
• Get active and try to be a healthy weight.
• Drink plenty of water.
• Do not skip breakfast.

​2.Buying your food

• Learn to read and understand food labels, especially the nutrition information so that you can make informed choices when you buy food.
• Also use the guidance systems on food labels, such as the ‘Traffic Lights’ one designed by the Food Standards Agency (shown below).
• Make a list of the foods you need to buy and try to stick to it, so that you do not buy less healthy foods on impulse.
• Try not to shop for food when you are hungry because you might be tempted to buy food you had not planned to eat.

​The Traffic Lights scheme

In the Traffic Lights scheme, the colours have the following meanings:
• Red: the food is HIGH in fat, salt or sugar.
• Amber: the food is not too high or low in fat, salt or sugar.
• Green: the food is LOW in fat, salt or sugar.

​3.Preparing your food

If you are using a recipe, have a look at the list of ingredients and see if you can reduce any ingredients, such as the fat, sugar or salt. Add any ingredients (extra fruit or vegetables) or change any ingredient (use wholemeal flour for extra fibre or use a reduced fat dairy product).
When you are preparing your food, pay attention to the amount of fat (oil), salt and sugar you add – you may find that you are adding a lot more than you actually need to.

​4.Cooking your food

It may be possible to change the cooking method you are using to reduce the amount of fat in the food. For example, grilling meat instead of frying it will let the fat in the meat drain away, poaching or boiling an egg instead of frying will avoid using fat and oven baking chips instead of frying them will reduce their fat content.

When stir-frying vegetables, meat or poultry, if the pan starts to become dry, add a little water instead of more oil. The water will bubble and steam and moisten the food so that it does not burn and you will not have added extra fat to the pan.

If you are cooking food for someone who does not like vegetables very much, ‘disguise’ them by cooking them and then pureeing them to add to sauces or soups or meat dishes such as stews.

If you are frying a food in oil, make sure that the oil is hot enough to start cooking the food as soon as it is put in the pan. If the oil is too cool, the food will sit in it and soak up the oil before it starts to cook, which will increase the amount of fat it contains. When the food is cooked place it on some kitchen towel to soak up any excess oil.

Use alternative flavours to salt for savoury recipes – herbs (fresh or dried), spices(fresh or dried), vegetables such as onion, celery and garlic, and fruits such as lemon, orange or lime zest and juice.