The new dietary food plate is a good model to use when packing a lunch for your children.

Abstract

Welcome to Public Health Moment from the University of Minnesota. The new dietary food plate is a good model to use when packing a lunch for your children. As we enter the “back to school” season, University of Minnesota nutrition expert Jamie Stang offers advice to parents on what to include in the lunch box. <Stang: “The new MyPlate is actually a good idea. You can use MyPlate on a plate or you can think of your lunch box as a plate. So, typically, we want to see at least half of the plate being fruit and vegetable. So, if you think of the lunch box, filling half of your lunch box with carrot sticks or bananas or grapes – easy things that you can put in the lunch box. The other half of the plate should be the protein and the carbohydrates. And that could be anything from your tuna or your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that could be crackers and cheese, it could be hummus and pita chips – but thinking about splitting the plate or lunch box half and half. So half fruits and vegetables and half the rest of the meal is a pretty easy guideline for most parents to follow.”> Stang adds that despite popular belief, school lunches are actually a well-rounded, nutritious option. <Stang: “But, really, [school] lunches have come a long way. Starting with some recent legislation, we’re now seeing half or more of the grain products must be whole grain. We also see that they are required to have fruit and vegetable with meals. And there’s a lot more focus on variety and providing specific fruits and vegetables that provide missing nutrients.”> For Public Health Moment, I’m Mark Engebretson.