TOPIC 3. MAKING GOOD FAMILY MEALS

NUTRITION NOTES

Healthy, balanced diets

BOX 9 · A BALANCED DIET

Topic 1 listed the main groups of foods. Topic 3 shows how to combine foods to make healthy, balanced diets. It discusses how to share meals so all of the family members get enough to cover their dietary needs.

The meals and snacks a family eats during the day should provide:

• a combination of different foods. Figure 5 on page 34 shows the wide variety of foods needed to provide all the many different nutrients we require;

• enough of each nutrient to satisfy the energy and nutrient needs of each family member.

A good meal should contain:

• a staple food. Look at the list of staple foods in Topic 1, page 19, and see if it contains the local staple foods. Add them if necessary;

• other foods that may be made into a sauce, stew or relish. These should include:

  - legumes and/or foods from animals;
  - at least one vegetable;
  - some fat or oil (but not too much) to increase the energy and improve taste. Most of the fat or oil should be from foods containing unsaturated fatty acids (see Box 4 in Topic 1).

It is good to eat fruits with a meal (or as a snack) and to drink plenty of water during the day. Avoid drinking tea or coffee until 1-2 hours after a meal (when food will have left the stomach) as these reduce the absorption of iron from food.

Figure 5. Use a variety of foods to make healthy meals

How to increase variety

Encourage families to use:

• several groups of foods at each meal;

• different vegetables and fruits at different meals because different vegetables and fruits contain varying amounts of the different micronutrients;

• meat, poultry, offal and fish daily if possible because these foods are the best sources of iron and zinc (which are often lacking in diets, especially the diets of young children and women).

Snacks

Snacks are foods eaten between meals. Below are examples of foods that make good snacks, particularly when more than one food is eaten.

Circle the ones available in your area and add other local nutritious snacks to the list.

Eating snacks like these is a good way of improving a diet which may lack food energy and nutrients. However, people should also know that eating often throughout the day increases the risk of tooth decay, particularly where oral hygiene is poor. This is particularly true for sweet (sugary) foods that stick to the teeth.

Eating away from home

Many people buy meals and snacks from vendors or eat in bars, restaurants or hotels; some students receive snacks or a meal at school. While eating out can be a special treat, eating outside the home too often can mean getting too many calories, fat and salt and not enough fruits, vegetables and essential nutrients. The nutrient composition of food eaten away is often not of the same quality as food prepared at home.

Encourage people to choose meals and snacks that provide a mixture of nutrients, especially if they regularly eat away from home.Warn them not to eat too many fried street foods as these may contain unhealthy fats and increase the risk of overweight. Encourage people who make and sell meals and snacks to prepare good-quality foods in a hygienic way (see Topic 4).

Sharing meals

Look at Appendix 2, Table 4. It compares the energy and nutrient needs of children, women and men of average size. If we change these nutrient needs into food needs, we find that families should:

• share staple foods and legumes according to energy needs (see Figure 6). Children aged 1-3 years need about a third of the amount needed by men. Note that energy needs increase greatly during puberty and adolescence, especially for boys, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding;

• share vegetables and fruits almost equally among all family members but make sure pregnant and breastfeeding women have bigger shares;

• give bigger shares of iron-rich foods (meat, offal, poultry and fish) to older girls and women, especially when they are pregnant.Young children are often anaemic and need a fair share of these foods too;

• make sure young children get plenty of fat-rich foods, such as milk, groundnuts, oils and fats that give them enough energy even though they eat smaller amounts of foods. Sugar, jaggery and honey are also ways to increase the energy content, and they can be added to porridge and other foods in small quantities.

• give young children their own bowl or plate. This allows them to get their share of the food if the rest of the family members are all eating from the same bowl.

The food needs of different family members are discussed in more detail in Topics 5-10.

Figure 6. Sharing meals according to need

Preparing and cooking good meals

The way we store, prepare and cook our food affects the nutrients in it. For example, some vitamin C and folate are lost during cooking. Ways to reduce nutrient losses are:

• buying or picking vegetables and fruits on the day you use them and storing them in a cool place;

• cleaning and cutting vegetables and fresh starchy roots immediately before cooking;

• cooking vegetables in little water or with a stew until just tender; other cooking methods for vegetables that preserve nutrients are stir frying (i.e. frying very quickly over high heat), or sautéing (i.e. cooking in fat or oil in a pan or on a griddle);

• eating food soon after cooking.

We absorb the vitamin A in plant foods better when the food is cooked (but not overcooked) and eaten with fat.

Families may cook and eat less often if fuel is scarce or expensive.Ways to save fuel include:

• using fuel-efficient stoves and cooking methods;

• using dry firewood;

• soaking legumes for several hours;

• cutting food into small pieces just before cooking;

• putting a tight-fitting lid on the pot;

• cleaning soot off pans;

• putting out fires promptly.

Topic 4 explains how to prepare foods in a hygienic way.

Enjoying meals

We all enjoy our meals if they are tasty and we eat them in a comfortable happy environment. Mealtime can be a time when families talk together, entertain guests and teach young children good habits and customs. It is a time when parents can give children loving attention as they encourage them to eat.

SHARING THIS INFORMATION

Before sharing this information with families, you may need to:

1. Find out. What foods are eaten at different meals. What types of snacks are eaten. Which foods need promoting. What the different foods eaten by different family members are. How food is shared. What foods are eaten away from home. What the cooking facilities are. Whether people have enough different foods to make healthy meals. If not, why not. What local recipes are used.

2. Prioritize. Decide which information is most important to share with groups or individual families.

3. Decide whom to reach. For example: people who prepare family meals, food vendors, cooks, and school-age children.

4. Choose communication methods. For example: discussions and demonstrations of meal planning with women’s and other community groups and at schools; leaflets with recipes.

Examples of questions to start a discussion
(choose only a few questions that deal with the information families need most)

Which combinations of local foods make good meals? How many of us make these sorts of meals regularly? If not, why not?

What can we do to improve our family meals? Which foods should we add or use more often?

Could we use more meat, offal, poultry or fish?

Could we use more different kinds of fruits and vegetables?

How do we share meals among the family? Do young children and women get their fair share? Demonstrate how a local meal should be shared. Do we share meals like this? If not, why not?