Healthy Eating Pamphlet
Kinda Kapers Healthy Eating Pamphlet
At Kinda Kapers we believe that good and healthy food habits start in early childhood, and that a healthy and nutritious diet gives children the best possible chance to be happy, healthy children. A healthy and nutritious diet also helps children to be more active during the day, to sleep better at night, and to be involved and focused learners. All things we want for our children! There are a lot of confusing messages about food in our society, so in this pamphlet we have tried to combine some of the best information about nutritious food and also tips for understanding ‘nutrition information’ labels on packaged foods. The following information can be found in further detail on www.goodforkids.nsw.gov.au and there are some interesting articles on www.choice.com.au under ‘Food For Kids’ regarding food choices for your children.
How much food from each food group should my child be eating each day?
Food Group
1-‐3 years
4-‐7 years
Vegetables Fruit Dairy Foods Meat and Meat alternatives Breads, cereals, rice and pasta
3-‐4 serves 2 serves 6 serves 1-‐2 serves At least 4 serves
4-‐8 serves 2-‐4 serves 4-‐6 serves 1-‐2 serves 6-‐14 serves
Extras (foods high in fat, salt, sugar)
Limit to ½ -‐ 2 serves
Limit to 1-‐2 serves
A child size serving is only half an adult size serving. Some examples of adult size servings from the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating are:
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2 slices of bread; 1 cup cooked rice, pasta, Starchy vegetables: 1 medium potato/yam, ½ medium sweet potato, Legumes and other vegetables: 1 cup lettuce or salad vegetables; ½ cup peas, zucchini 1 piece medium sized fruit (eg apple, banana) 2 pieces of smaller fruit eg apricots, about 8 strawberries, about 20 grapes or cherries, ½ cup (125ml) fruit juice (sugar free) Dried fruit eg 4 dried apricots or 1½ tablespoon sultanas
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250 ml glass or one cup of milk (can be fresh, long life or reconstituted milk) 40g (2 slices) cheese or 1 cup of custard 200g (1 small carton) of plain or fruit yoghurt 65-‐100gm cooked meat/chicken (eg ½ cup mince, 2 small chops, or 2 slices roast meat) 80-‐120g cooked fish fillet, 2 small eggs, ⅓ cup cooked dried beans, lentils, chickpeas, or 1/3 cup peanuts/almonds Extras -‐ 1 medium slice of plain cake or 1 bun, 3-‐4 plain sweet biscuits, half a small chocolate bar, 60g jam, honey (1 tablespoon), 30g (1/2 a small packet) potato crisps, 1 can soft drink or 2 glasses cordial, 2 scoops ice-‐cream, 1 tablespoon (20g) butter, margarine, oil
Remember that a child size serving is only HALF of one of these…
Reading and Understanding Nutrition Information Panels There’s a lot of information on a Nutrition Information Panel (NIP)! We can read how much sugar, fat, sodium, fibre etc is in a food item, but that doesn’t tell us if it’s a safe amount or if it’s too much. Current food standard codes require all manufactured foods to have a nutrition information panel. They provide information on the levels of: saturated fats and total fat; protein; energy (kilojoules); sugars (includes added sugar and natural sugar); total carbohydrate; and sodium (salt). Nutrition Information The following tables are from www.choice.com.au and provide a fantastic reference point to know what levels to look out for.
According to www.choice.com.au a good amount of fibre in a food item is greater than 6g of fibre per serve.
NIP’s will list their quantities for per serve (what they consider to be a serve, not necessarily what you will consume!) and also per 100g / 100ml, so it makes it easy to compare different foods. The following NIP is from Arnotts Milk Arrowroots, a common food for young children! Nutrition Information – Arnotts Milk Arrowroot Following the food chart on the left, the sodium and Servings per package: About 10.3, Serving Size: fat content on Milk Arrowroots falls in the ‘OK’ 24.3g (3 biscuits) levels, but the sugar content falls in to the ‘a lot’ Avg. % Daily Avg. category! This is where your common sense comes quantity intake* quantity into play as you read the NIP’s. Your baby is very per (per per 100g unlikely to consume 100g of this product (3 biscuits serving serve) is only 24.3g) but it gives you a starting point to Energy 447kj 5.1% 1,840kj compare the biscuit with another one which you Protein 1.5g 2.9% 6.1g could alternate with! Fat, total 2.7g 3.8% 10.9g (Something to think about – yoghurts aimed at -‐Saturated 1.3g 5.3% 5.2g children quite often have 12g of sugar per 100g or Carbohydrate 18.7g 6.0% 76.8g more – which might seem less than an arrowroot – -‐Sugars 5.4g 6.0% 22.2g but your child is going to consume 100g in one Sodium 66mg 2.9% 272mg serve…) *Percentage Daily Intakes are based on an average adult diet of 8700kj. Your daily intakes may be higher or lower depending on your energy needs
There are also many claims made on food packaging that can be misleading or confusing. Remember to check the NIP if you are unsure! Some of the common ones are: • No added sugar – the product may contain no added sugar but this doesn’t necessarily make it sugar free – it could contain high levels of natural sugars from fruit or milk (eg) • Light or lite foods are not necessarily low in fat or kilojoules, but could be ‘light’ in colour or flavour eg, light olive oil is a subtle, paler oil but has just as much fat! If a food claims to be light it should say somewhere what makes it light • 90% fat free – remember this means that there is still 10% fat! • Baked not fried – this is not a guarantee of lower fat content.
Trans fats Trans fat is listed separately in some NIP’s. How do you know which is good fat and which is bad fat? www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au tells us that some fats are good for us and can help reduce the “bad” type of cholesterol that causes a lot of health problems. These good fats include polyunsaturated, monounsaturated fats; omega-‐3, omega-‐6 or omega-‐9 fatty acids. Trans fats and saturated fats increase the level of "bad" cholesterol, with trans fats also decreasing the level of "good" cholesterol. This can cause a number of serious health problems. In Australia manufacturers are only required to list trans fat as separate to saturated fat if they are making a claim regarding cholesterol or
unsaturated fats. Many foods could contain trans fat and we wouldn’t know, so it is best to choose foods with low levels of saturated fat.
Sugar Manufacturers can name sugar under many other different names which we mightn’t recognise, and can even split into several names, meaning they could be lower down on the ingredient list than otherwise (ingredients must be listed in order of amounts – most to least). Here are some of the other names used for sugar, found on www.health-‐eating-‐support.org : ). • All the “ –oses” including: Dextrose, Fructose, Glucose, Lactose, Levulose, Maltose, Sucrose • All the “syrups” including: Cane syrup, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, High Maltose Corn Syrup, Brown Rice Syrup, Malt Syrup • Corn Sweetener, Honey, Cane Juice, Molasses, Maple Sugar, Brown Sugar, Invert Sugar, Raw Sugar, Turbinado sugar Foods containing fats and sugars are classed as ‘extra’ foods in the dietary requirements list. The recommended serves of these for children is no more than 2 serves a day. The maximum recommended serve for adults is 2.5 for women and 3 for men, so you can see why the serves for children should stay small!
During your child’s day at Kinda Kapers we are required to serve slightly more than 50% of your child’s recommended daily serves (because our centres are open longer than 8 hours). So you can feel assured that the foods your child is eating at daycare are healthy, nutritious and contribute to their dietary requirements! It can be hard to encourage your children to eat as much fruit and veg as you would like them to! Most parents struggle at on time or another to get their kids eating a healthy dinner, or the fruit on their plate as a snack. Keep trying, and remember that you are setting up healthy habits for the rest of their lives. Experts recommend that some children need to be offered a particular food up to ten times before they will accept it, so if your child won’t eat carrots, keep putting them on their plate, and one night they might surprise you! As in all aspects of your child’s life, praise them when they do try! And for older children you can talk about how healthy foods help our bodies grow stronger, and maybe your children will be reminding YOU about healthy eating habits before you know it!
Sourced: www.goodforkids.nsw.gov.au www.choice.com.au Australian Guide to Healthy Eating www.health-‐eating-‐support.org www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au www.measureup.gov.au
