Food Focus Messages - Fall Food FocusHealth Benefits and Tips Dairy: Milk Yogurt Cheese Choose low-fat and fat-free dairy foods for all the health benefits and less unhealthy saturated fat Try to get three to four servings of dairy a day Milk can be a great exercise recovery drink because it has carbohydrates to refuel, protein for muscle building, and fluid and electrolytes for rehydration If you’re lactose intolerant, you may still be able to eat a variety of dairy foods to benefit from its bone-building calcium – including easier-to-digest foods like yogurt with active cultures, certain cheeses, as well as lactose-free milk. Tree Fruit: Pear Apple Peach Orange Plum Nectarine Apricot Cherry Tree fruits can be eaten in many different forms – fresh, sliced up on a bowl of cereal, mashed up like applesauce, canned like sliced peaches, and even dried. Some tree fruits have pits but others have seeds. That’s because they come from different families of plants. Did you know that most of the fiber in tree fruits comes from the skin? Many tree fruits are high in Vitamin C, which helps our immune system to keep us from getting sick and to help heal cuts and scrapes. Red & Orange Vegetables: Carrot Sweet Potato Tomato Red Pepper Butternut Squash Pumpkin Winter Squash Mix and match your colors – eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables every week. Do you know why it’s important to eat more colorful vegetables? The more color a vegetable has – the more vitamins and minerals it has. These vegetables get their color from beta carotene, an antioxidant that the body converts to Vitamin A. Vitamin A helps our vision, protects us from infections, and helps keep skin healthy. There are so many ways to eat colorful vegetables – zesty tomato sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, fresh carrot sticks, roasted red peppers, baked butternut squash – how many other ways can you think of?

Food Focus Messages - Winter Food FocusHealth Benefits and Tips Whole Grains: Barley Quinoa Brown Rice Pasta Bran Oats Bulgur  Whole grains have a whole lot of benefits – they contains lots of vitamins of minerals, they give you energy, and they have fiber – which is good for your digestive system (your tummy!)  Try to eat a few different whole grains a day – like whole grain cereal at breakfast, whole wheat pita bread at lunch, and brown rice at dinner  You can use whole grains to make your favorite foods too – like whole wheat flour in muffins or barley in a rice pilaf.  Try new foods too – like the Lebanese dish tabbouleh, made with bulgur. Herbs & Spices: Basil Parsley Cinnamon Cilantro Garlic Chili Ginger Rosemary Cumin Oregano Savory Curry  Experiment with different herbs and spices to see which ones you like  Use herbs and spices to make food flavorful without adding fat, salt, or sugar  Pair these spices with sweet foods – cinnamon, allspice, and ginger – when added to sweet foods they can make the food taste sweeter, not to mention flavorful!  Herbs are easy to grow both indoors and out, and are a great way to add flavor to all kinds of foods, from pizza, to pasta, to salad Dried Fruit: Cranberries Cherries Raisins Apricots Mango Figs Plums  Dried fruit is a great way to get some fruit in your day – go for unsweetened since fruit is naturally sweet enough  Make a quick snack-to-go by mixing dried fruit, whole grain cereal, and nuts or seeds in a plastic bag – instant trail mix  Raisins were discovered accidentally when a heat wave dried the grapes on the vine  Fruits can be dried naturally (by the sun) or mechanically (by machines)  Dried fruits have many of the same benefits of fresh fruit – including fiber, vitamins, and minerals like potassium, an electrolyte – a substance that conducts electrical impulses in the body and helps your brain tell your muscles when to move