MyPlate is the current national nutrition guide, set by the United States Department of Agriculture. The main goal of MyPlate is to create a visually appealing guide, which features nutrient-dense foods, incorporated into a balanced diet. MyPlate encourages people to enjoy a variety of food, while making healthy choices from the different food groups represented. In addition, according to Choosemyplate.gov, “people should be choosing foods and beverages that are low in saturated fat, sodium and added sugars” (United States Department of Agriculture [USDA], 2016). MyPlate promotes Americans to acquire better nutritional knowledge about the food they are eating. In order to accomplish that, MyPlate created the …show more content…
Thus, I chose the rationale because I knew that processed food contained a lot of sodium. The second intervention was to decrease how often I ate out. The rationale was that, I was unaware of the amount of salt that restaurants were adding my food, which made it hard to control my intake of salt. The third intervention was to learn to cook healthier at home. The rationale was to learn to enjoy foods, without adding salt to heighten the flavors, of the food. After the seven days, I did meet my goal of reducing sodium consumption. What contributed the most to reaching that goal, was cutting out processed food. I noticed that once I stopped eating processed food; I was more motivated to cook healthier at home. Unfortunately, it was hard to avoid eating out because I am a college student, and I did not always have time to cook. Although, when I did eat out, I asked for the nutrition menu, which made choosing healthy food …show more content…
According to the text, “MyPlate recommends having at least two and a half cups of vegetables per day” (Dudek, 2014, p. 189). I chose the goal because my vegetable consumption was below the recommended amount for more than fifty percent of the week. Also, vegetables are low in calories, and provide an abundance of vitamins and minerals to my diet. My first intervention was to include one portion of vegetables with each meal. The rationale was that, it would be easier to incorporate vegetables into multiple meals, rather than focusing solely on cooking with vegetables. The second intervention was to replace pasta with zucchini noodles. The rationale was that, I eat pasta frequently, and zucchini noodles taste good while being a healthier alternative.
After the seven days, I did not reach my goal of increasing vegetable intake. I quickly began to get bored with eating the same vegetables everyday. My knowledge about vegetables was inadequate, which lead to the failure of my goal. Thus, I could have spent more time researching vegetable varieties in order to reach my goal.
Goal