Sankofa Speaks Blog: HEAL Project Celebrates National Nutrition Month

In honor of National Nutrition Month, Sankofa's HEAL enrichment class and after-school club have been focusing on nutrition awareness and ways for students to improve nutrition in their own lives. By providing students at a young age with the knowledge and tools they need to make healthy choices, we believe they will be more likely to make those choices throughout the life-cycle.

Our most recent classes have been about the food groups and sugar content in beverages. We utilized MyPlate (shown below) as a tool to demonstrate how students should be eating. There was a focus on eating more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. These three food groups should comprise most of your plate. Students learned about the process of refining grains and the nutrients which are lost during processing (ie. fiber, vitamins, and minerals). For this reason it's crucial to eat your grains in their whole form (oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa) or eat products made from whole grains (whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta) for the best nutrition. We discussed different protein and calcium sources from both plants and animals. Ample protein can come from legumes (beans + lentils), nuts, and seeds, as well as animals. Dairy is a recommended part of the diet for the calcium it contains. Dark leafy vegetables (kale, broccoli, spinach) and soy products are also great sources of bone-strengthening calcium.

Sourced from: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/

To bring National Nutrition Month to a close, we had a Smoothie Day with the enrichment students. Prior to this class, the students learned about the high amounts of sugar in commonly consumed beverages. Highly sweetened beverages include soft drinks, most iced teas, sports drinks (Gatorade), energy drinks (Red Bull), and juice that isn't 100% fruit juice.

To show the students how to choose a healthier alternative, we helped them create one. The class was first divided into two teams.

Each team was provided with healthy ingredients from which they could choose to add to their smoothie. There were strawberries, blueberries, and bananas for them to choose from. Ice and 100% cranberry juice were also added to the smoothies to cool down the drink and add some liquid.