1. Chapter 4
Nutrition Guidelines

2. Tools For Planning A Healthful Diet
Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) – A set of nutrient reference values. They can be used to plan and asses diets for healthy people.
Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) – are a planning tool that has been published since RDIs are suggested levels of nutrient intake to meet the needs of most healthy people.

3. Tools con’t
Estimated Average Requirements (EAR) – This is a nutrient recommendation estimated to meet the need of half the health people in a group.
Adequate Intake (AI) – This is a value determined for nutrients for which research is inconclusive.
Upper Tolerable intake Level (UL) – It represents the maximum level at which a nutrient is unlikely to cause harm to most people

4. Canada’s Food Guide
The guide is a visual tool used to help people plan healthful diets. It divides foods into their groups and gives a range for the number of daily servings a person should eat.

5. Traditional Version of the Canada’s food Guide

6. Determining Daily Servings Needed
The food guide recommends a range of daily servings for each food group.
The number of servings you need depends on several factors. Your age, sex, body size, and activity level all affect your particular needs.

7. Servings size
You need to know how much food equals a serving. Serving size is the amount of a food item normally eaten at one time.
Reading the food labels on packages can help you determine the serving size for some foods. Sometimes a visual reference can be very helpful.

8. Visual serving size reference

9. Dietary Guidelines
The US government released 10 recommendations to help people choose a more healthful diet;
Aim for a healthy weight
Be physically active each day
Follow the food guide when choosing what to eat
Choose a variety of grains, especially whole grains
Choose a variety of fruits and vegetables daily
Keep food safe to eat
Choose a diet that is low in saturated fat and cholesterol
Choose foods and beverages to moderate your intake of sugar
Choose and prepare foods with less salt
If you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation

10. Variety, Moderation, and Balance
These three word sum up the spirit of healthful eating with the dietary guidelines.
Variety means you should include many different kinds of food in your diet.
Moderation means you should avoid eating too much of any one type of food.
Balance involves selecting foods that are lower in salt, fat, sugar, saturated fats, cholesterol, and calories.

11. The Daily Values on food labels
Daily values are recommended nutrient intakes based on daily calorie needs. Daily values are for carbohydrate, fat, and protein used as references on food labels are based on a 2000 calorie per day diet.

12. Example of a Food Label

13. Nutrient Density
Nutrient Density is a comparison of the nutrients provided by a food with the calories provided by the food. It is an evaluation of the nutritional quality of a food.
Calculating nutrient density involves looking at a person’s daily nutrient and calorie needs.

14. Nutrient Density Chart

15. Using Food Recommendations and guidelines
Keep a food diary – Before you can determine whether you are getting enough nutrients, you need to know what foods you are eating. This means recording the amounts of food and beverage that you consume for a given time.

16. continued
Analyze your diet – Use your food diary to see if you are meeting your nutritional needs. There are a number of software programs available that can quickly analyze your diet and tell you if you are lacking in a certain area.

17. Plan Menus Using the Food Guide
Your diet analysis may show you are eating too much or too little of a certain food or foods.
Planning your menu using the food guide can help correct such problems by following the recommended number of servings per food group and by eating reasonable portion sizes.

18. Extra Tips for using the Food Guide
Bread, Cereal, and pasta group
Choose whole grains
Avoid adding more salt
Choose cereal with less sugar
Choose less instant products – they are high in sodium
Choose less high fat snacks
Vegetable Group
Choose fresh over canned
Use herbs rather than butter to season cooked vegetables
Choose baked or steamed vegetables over battered or fried varieties

19. Food Guide tips continued
Milk, Yogurt and Cheese
Use lower fat options
Meat, fish and poultry
Choose lean cuts of meat
Remover skin from poultry before eating
Limit your use of processed luncheon meats. (high fat and sodium)
Choose canned fish packed in water rather than oil.