Decisions, decisions : vegetarianism, breakfasts, and beyond 9781422289372, 1422289370

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Nutrition can be complicated. How do you know which foods are healthy and what aren’t? How much should you eat? What exactly should you eat? During your lifetime, starting right now, you’ll have to make a lot of decisions about food. You’ll need to choose whether or not to eat breakfast. You’ll pick what to eat for lunch. You’ll decide whether you want to eat meat or not. It’s good to be prepared to make healthy food decisions. Decisions, Decisions: Vegetarianism, Breakfasts, and Beyond helps you navigate through the many food options you face.

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ISBN 978-1-4222-2875-3

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Decisions, Decisions: Vegetarianism, Breakfasts, and Beyond

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA  19008 www.masoncrest.com Copyright © 2014 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. First printing 987654321 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-2874-6 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4222-2875-3 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8937-2 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4222-2986-6 The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcopy format(s) as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Etingoff, Kim. Decisions, decisions : vegetarianism, breakfasts, and beyond / Kim Etingoff. pages cm. – (Understanding nutrition : a gateway to physical & mental health) Audience: Grade 4 to 6. ISBN 978-1-4222-2875-3 (hardcover) – ISBN 978-1-4222-2874-6 (series) – ISBN 978-1-42222986-6 (paperback) – ISBN 978-1-4222-8937-2 (ebook) 1. Food–Social aspects–Juvenile literature. 2. Food preferences in children–Juvenile literature. 3. Diet–Juvenile literature. 4. Children–Nutrition–Juvenile literature. I. Title. TX355.E84 2014 641.5’622–dc23 2013009423 Produced by Vestal Creative Services. www.vestalcreative.com

Understanding Nutrition

A Gateway to Physical & Mental Health

Decisions, Decisions: Vegetarianism, Breakfasts, and Beyond Kim Etingoff

Mason Crest

Contents Introduction 6 1. Becoming a Young Adult: Your Time to Choose 9 2. Making Food Choices That Are Right for You 21 3. Ways to Support Healthy Nutrition (No Matter What Choices You Make) 31 Find Out More 46 Index 47 About the Author & Consultant and Picture Credits 48

Introduction by Dr. Joshua Borus

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here are many decisions to make about food. Almost everyone wants to “eat healthy”—but what does that really mean? What is the “right” amount of food and what is a “normal” portion size? Do I need sports drinks if I’m an athlete—or is water okay? Are all “organic” foods healthy? Getting reliable information about nutrition can be confusing. All sorts of restaurants and food makers spend billions of dollars trying to get you to buy their products, often by implying that a food is “good for you” or “healthy.” Food packaging has unbiased, standardized nutrition labels, but if you don’t know what to look for, they can be hard to understand. Magazine articles and the Internet seem to always have information about the latest fad diets or new “superfoods” but little information you can trust. Finally, everyone’s parents, friends, and family have their own views on what is healthy. How are you supposed to make good decisions with all this information when you don’t know how to interpret it? The goal of this series is to arm you with information to help separate what is healthy from not healthy. The books in the series will help you think about things like proper portion size and how eating well can help you stay healthy, improve your mood, and manage your weight. These books will also help you take action. They will let you know some of the changes you can make to keep healthy and how to compare eating options. Keep in mind a few broad rules: • First, healthy eating is a lifelong process. Learning to try new foods, preparing foods in healthy ways, and focusing on the big picture are essential parts of that process. Almost no one can keep on a very restrictive diet for a long time or entirely cut out certain groups of foods, so it’s best to figure out how to eat healthy in a way that’s realistic for you by making a number of small changes.

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• Second, a lot of healthy eating hasn’t really changed much over the years and isn’t that complicated once you know what to look for. The core of a healthy diet is still eating reasonable portions at regular meals. This should be mostly fruits and vegetables, reasonable amounts of proteins, and lots of whole grains, with few fried foods or extra fats. “Junk food” and sweets also have their place—they taste good and have a role in celebrations and other happy events—but they aren’t meant to be a cornerstone of your diet! • Third, avoid drinks with calories in them, beverages like sodas, iced tea, and most juices. Try to make your liquid intake all water and you’ll be better off. • Fourth, eating shouldn’t be done mindlessly. Often people will munch while they watch TV or play games because it’s something to do or because they’re bored rather then because they are hungry. This can lead to lots of extra food intake, which usually isn’t healthy. If you are eating, pay attention, so that you are enjoying what you eat and aware of your intake. • Finally, eating is just one part of the equation. Exercise every day is the other part. Ideally, do an activity that makes you sweat and gets your heart beating fast for an hour a day—but even making small decisions like taking stairs instead of elevators or walking home from school instead of driving make a difference. After you read this book, don’t stop. Find out more about healthy eating. Choosemyplate.gov is a great Internet resource from the U.S. government that can be trusted to give good information; www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource is a webpage from the Harvard School of Public Health where scientists sort through all the data about food and nutrition and distill it into easy-to-understand messages. Your doctor or nurse can also help you learn more about making good decisions. You might also want to meet with a nutritionist to get more information about healthy living. Food plays an important role in social events, informs our cultural heritage and traditions, and is an important part of our daily lives. It’s not just how we fuel our bodies; it’s also but how we nourish our spirit. Learn how to make good eating decisions and build healthy eating habits—and you’ll have increased long-term health, both physically and psychologically. So get started now!

Introduction

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1 A

Becoming a Young Adult: Your Time to Choose

s a young person, you may not always think you get a lot of choice about what to eat. Your parents or other adults might be the ones who pick out the foods from the grocery store that end up in your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator. Maybe you’re expected to eat what’s on your plate at dinner. You sure don’t get to pick the foods in your school cafeteria! But the fact is, you have lots of choices when it comes to eating. Even if that only means you refuse to eat your vegetables . . . or you throw away most of your school lunch

and grab a bag of chips from a vending machine instead . . . or you let your mom and dad know what you like and don’t like. All those things are choices you make. The adults in your life pay a lot more attention to your food choices than you probably realize! As you get older, you’ll get even more choices. There are a lot of food choices out there. Not all those choices are good, but a lot of them are! So how do we pick? Maybe you think that taste is the best way to choose the foods you eat. That seems pretty obvious—you choose to eat the things that taste good, right? And you do your best to avoid things that don’t taste so good to you. But there are other factors to think about besides taste, things like: What’s What Are Factors? healthiest? What makes the most sense for the planet? What foods go along with what Factors are things that help make you believe about life? What fits in with a certain thing happen. For exyour schedule? What foods will help you do ample, enough light and water the things you need to do each day? are two of the factors that help

make a plant grow. Your mom’s mood might be one of the factors you should consider before you ask permission to do something! How much you study for a test, how tired you are, and how easy the subject is for you might all be factors that will affect the grade you get on a test.

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is one choice you have when it comes to eating. Vegetarians don’t eat meat. More and more people are becoming vegetarians. Even a lot of kids are vegetarians. There are different kinds of vegetarians. Some vegetarians don’t eat any kinds of animal meat. Some eat fish but not chicken, beef, pork, or other meat. A more extreme vegetarian is a vegan. Vegans don’t eat anything that comes from animals. So they don’t eat eggs, milk, or cheese. They don’t eat meat or dairy products. Young people are vegetarians for a lot of reasons. Some grew up with families that are vegetarian. Not eating meat is just normal for them. It’s not really a choice they made, because it’s just the way their families eat.

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Like vegetarians, vegans don’t eat meat. Vegans don’t eat cheese, eggs, milk, or any other foods that come from animals, so that means a lot of fruits and vegetables!

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Vegetarians of All Kinds There are a lot of words for different kinds of vegetarians. There are: • Lacto-vegetarians: People who don’t eat meat or dairy products. They do eat eggs. • Lacto-ovo vegetarians: People who don’t meat. They do eat eggs and dairy products. • Pesce-vegetarians: People who don’t eat most meat. They do eat fish. • Pollo-vegetarians: People who don’t eat most meat (like beef and pork). They do eat chicken. • Vegans: People who don’t eat any animal products. They don’t eat meat, dairy products, or eggs. Sometimes they don’t eat honey.

Other young people choose to be vegetarian. They don’t want to eat animals. They would rather that people treat animals kindly. Some young people are vegetarians because of health reasons. They think that being a vegetarian is healthier for them than eating meat. And other young people worry that raising meat is harder on the environment than raising plant crops, and so they choose to be vegetarians as a way to take care of the planet. Some people are worried that vegetarians don’t get enough nutrients from food. But a good vegetarian diet gives you everything you need. It can be just as good for you as eating meat. You have to know what foods to choose, though. You can’t just give up eating meat!

Breakfast Breakfast is one of the three main meals of the day, but it’s a meal that many young people like to skip.

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Skipping breakfast may seem like a small thing, but leaving for school before you’ve eaten can keep you from doing your best for the rest of the day. You’ll be better prepared for school by eating breakfast each morning.

When you were little, you probably didn’t think twice about breakfast. The grownups in your life said you had to eat it. You got up in the morning—then you got dressed—and then you ate breakfast before you left for school. It was a normal routine. As you get older, though, getting up in the morning may seem harder. Lots of kids wake up too late to eat breakfast. They only have time to get dressed and run out the door. Maybe you don’t feel hungry in the morning.

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Not eating breakfast is not good for your body, though. Even if you don’t feel hungry, you need breakfast to get you started in the morning. Scientists have found that people learn better and work better when they eat breakfast. People who eat breakfast have more energy for their day. Skipping breakfast is a choice. You can choose to get up a few minutes early to eat. Or you can grab some food as you run out the door. It’s up to you to pick the best choice for you.

Snacks Eating snacks—food between meals—is another choice you have. You might eat a snack when you get home from school. You might feel like snacking in the evening while you watch TV or play computer games. Snacks are important. They keep us going through the day. Young people need snacks. They have smaller stomachs than many adults, so they need to eat small meals more often. And most young people use up a lot of energy during the day. It’s easy to choose unhealthy snacks, though. When you want a snack, you don’t want to wait to prepare something. You want What Are Nutrients? something that’s all ready to eat, something you can grab easily. It’s not hard to get a bag Nutrients are the things in foods of chips from the school vending machine. that our bodies need in order to Pulling out some ice cream from the freezer grow and stay alive. after school is easy too. But those aren’t good snack choices. “Junk food” snacks don’t have the nutrients your body needs to be healthy and strong. Junk foods have a lot of calories, though, so they can make you gain weight. It’s better to choose healthy snacks, like fruits and vegetables. There are lots of tasty healthy snacks out there. You just have to learn what they are. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever eat junk food—but good snacks are good for you. You want to eat foods that will make you able to think, act, and look the best.

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Fast Foods Fast food is very easy to get. A lot of people eat fast food all the time. It’s quick and convenient. Lots of families are busy. They pick up dinner at the drive-through on the way to soccer practice or an orchestra concert. Fast food restaurants can be good places to meet up with friends too. But fast food is not the best food choice. In fact, a lot of fast foods are full of unhealthy What Are things. Eating too much fast food can make Nutritionists? you sick. You’ll start to gain weight if you eat too much of it. You’ll miss out on the Nutritionists are people who good foods that would make you stronger are experts on what’s good for and healthier. people to eat. They’ve gone to Fast food is okay once in a while. But nuschool and learned all about what tritionists say that fast food should be for foods are healthiest and how special occasions only. people should choose the right Right now, maybe your family eats a lot foods for them. of fast food. Maybe they never eat fast food as a family. As you get older, though, more and more you’ll be the one making choices about whether to eat fast food a lot. It will be up to you! And right now, you can let your family know whether you think fast food is good choice or not.

Processed Foods Another food choice we make is about processed foods. Processed foods are made in factories. They usually have a lot of ingredients. They come in containers, like boxes or bags or cans. Chips are processed foods. So is the yogurt you buy at the store. Cookies are processed foods. And lunch meat. And cereal. Fresh foods are the opposite of processed. Fruits and

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Fast Food in Film Lots of people are worried about fast food. One man even made a whole movie about it. Morgan Spurlock decided to eat McDonald’s for thirty days. He ate every meal every day there. He filmed what happened and made the movie Super Size Me. He wanted to show people what would happen to his health. After eating so much fast food, he started to feel very sick. He gained almost twenty-five pounds in a month! The movie shows just what fast food can do to you. See if you can watch it. It might help you make up your mind about whether fast foods are right for you.

vegetables are fresh. So are whole grains like oats and rice. They weren’t made in factories. They only have one ingredient. They don’t usually come in a package or container.

Lots of people eat a lot of processed foods. They’re quick and easy. You eat cereal for breakfast. For lunch, your school cafeteria might serve canned soup. For dinner, you might have macaroni and cheese made from a box. Processed doesn’t mean bad. When things are processed, they last longer. Canned tomatoes last a lot longer than fresh tomatoes. You can keep them in the cupboard for a long time without them spoiling. But most processed foods have a lot of salt and sugar in them. Think about how salty chips are. Or how sweet some cereal is. Salt and sugar aren’t good for you if you eat a lot of them. Fresh foods have more vitamins and minerals in them. They give you good energy. They keep you strong. Eating fewer processed foods can be hard. Everyone seems to be eating processed food all the time. It takes a little more effort to eat food made from fresh foods. But eating fresh foods can be fun and tasty! And it’s one of the best choices you can make if you want to stay healthy.

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Potato chips are a processed food, full of salt and fat. Eating chips and other processed foods every once in a while is fine, but eating these foods too often can lead to weight gain and even health problems.

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Another Choice: Local Food? Most of the food in grocery stores comes from far away. It comes from another state. Or from across the world. Your oranges come from Florida, for example. Your rice comes from China. Your bananas come from Panama. Most of us take for granted that we can go to the store and buy foods that come from all around the world, but it takes a lot of energy to move food from one place to another. The trucks and boats and planes that carry our foods are fueled with oil. Burning oil pollutes the environment. Oil is also a scarce resource that may run out one day. Because of things like this, some people choose to get their food from places nearby. They buy carrots and lettuce from the people who grow it right in the same area. Food from your town, or a nearby town, is called local food. When you buy local food, you’re not only doing your part to protect the environment—you’re also helping your neighbors make money by buying what they grow. You’re getting fresher food because it’s from next door. There are lots of reasons to eat local food! Some grocery stores and restaurants are starting to use only local food. Local food shoppers also buy their food from farmers’ markets. Or they buy it straight from the farmers themselves. When you buy local, you know exactly where your food comes from!

Choices When you were younger, you probably didn’t think a lot about food choices. The adults in your life made a lot of these choices for you. All you did was say, “Yuck!” when you didn’t like something.

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As you get older, though, you have lots of new choices to face. Those choices give you more power about who you are. They give you chances to decide for yourself how you want to feel and act. Even if adults are still the ones going to the grocery store and paying for the food you eat, the grownups in your life pay attention to what you like and what you don’t. If you never eat fresh fruits and vegetables, for example, the folks who buy your food may give up buying it. But if you let them know you want to try new things, they’ll probably listen. If you ask them to buy certain foods, as long as they’re available and not too expensive, they’ll probably be happy to pick them up for you. Maybe you can even get the grownups in your life to eat healthier too! Because of you, they might try new choices for themselves. When it comes to food choices, you have power. Use it!

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Making Food Choices That Are Right for You E

verybody is a little different. What might be a good food choice for one person isn’t as good for someone else. You should make the choices that are right for you.

What Does Your Body Need?

We all need food. That’s something we all have in common. We need food for our hearts to pump blood. We need food to move around. We need food to think.

Calorie-Counting Experiment For an experiment, you can add up how many calories you eat every day. There are lots of websites that tell you how many calories most foods have. First, keep a list of every single food you eat in one day. Don’t lie! Then look up how many calories are in each food. You can use websites or the food labels on packages. Add up all the calories. Is it around 2,000? Talk to your doctor if you have questions about what you discover.

Food has energy in it. Just like a car needs gasoline energy to run, we need food energy to run. We measure energy in calories. We measure height in feet and inches (or meters and centimeters), we measure weight in pounds (or kilograms), and we measure how much energy food has in calories. People need about 2,000 calories every day. Some need a little more. Some need a little less. Calories are what keep us going. Two thousand calories might sounds like a lot! But if you went to a McDonald’s and ate a Big Mac®, a large fries, and a chocolate milkshake, you’d be eating 1620 calories. That’s almost an entire day’s worth of calories in one meal! Foods that are high in calories may taste good. But when you eat too many calories, you start to gain weight. And when you gain weight, you might get sick. You can choose to try other foods that don’t have as many calories. You can teach yourself to like new things. Food also has nutrients. Nutrients are things we need to live. But our bodies can’t make them. Vitamins and minerals are nutrients. Some important vitamins are vitamin B, vitamin D, and vitamin K. Each one does something a little different. Vitamin D helps keep your bones strong, for example.

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Diabetes Diabetes is a kind of sickness that some people get when they weigh too much. Even kids can get diabetes. Diabetes is a sickness in which your body can’t use sugar the way it’s supposed to. There are two kinds of diabetes. One is called Type 1 diabetes. It is usually passed on from parents to children. Type 1 diabetes doesn’t really have much to do with a person’s weight. Someone who is a healthy weight can get Type 1 diabetes. People with Type 1 get it when they are kids and have to give themselves shots of something called insulin. The shots help their bodies use sugar normally. The other kind of diabetes is Type 2 diabetes. Being overweight or obese can cause it. People with Type 2 diabetes don’t usually have to get shots, but they do have to watch what they eat. They will have to exercise and lose weight. They are more likely to get sick later on than people without diabetes. For example, they could get heart disease or kidney failure. It’s much better to avoid getting Type 2 diabetes in the first place! Minerals are things like calcium, iron, and potassium. They do important things too. For instance, iron keeps us feeling like we have a lot of energy. To get all those nutrients, we need to eat different kinds of food. Fruits and vegetables have some of them. Grains have others. Dairy and meat have nutrients too. You need to eat lots of different foods to get all the nutrients your body needs to be strong and work its best.

What Do You Believe? People believe different things. One kid might believe that hockey is the best sport. Her best friend thinks baseball is the best. People can have different beliefs about food too.

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This chart gives examples of the number of calories in common foods. Keeping track of how many calories you eat can be tricky, but it’s one of the best ways to stay in shape.

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One food choice where beliefs are really important is vegetarianism. Some people don’t think twice about eating meat. And that’s okay. That’s the right choice for them. But some do care about eating meat. They have a lot of reasons not to eat it. One reason is because meat comes from animals. Some people think that killing and eating animals is wrong. They think about the cows, pigs, and chickens that get turned into meat. And they can’t eat them. Some people think about being a vegetarian in a slightly different way. Most of the meat we eat today is raised in a certain way. The animals live in crowded factories. They walk in mud, not on grass. They don’t have room to move around. They get sick a lot and have to take medicine all the time. After some people learn about how meat is made, they don’t want to eat it. They might eat meat that comes from animals that are happier. But they don’t like how they’re treated at the factories. So they stop eating the meat that comes from those places. They only eat meat that is grown locally or on other farms where they know the animals have been treated kindly. Other vegetarians have made their choice because they’ve learned that raising meat takes a lot more natural resources than raising plants and grains does. Meat animals need food, and that food must be grown first. Meat animals also need a lot of water to live. They require a lot of land. They produce waste that can pollute streams and other sources of water. Other vegetarians stop eating meat because they believe it’s a healthier choice. Meat has a lot of fat in it. It can have a lot of salt and cholesterol. Those things are all bad for your body if you eat too much of them. Some people feel a lot better when they cut out meat. They have more energy. Their digestive systems feel better. And some people feel better when they eat meat. Everyone’s a little different. It’s up to you to figure out if vegetarianism is right for you. If you’re thinking about it, talk about it with your family. Ask your doctor. Find out how to be a healthy vegetarian. If you just cut meat out of your diet, and eat nothing but bread and chips and cookies, that’s not a healthy choice! Being a vegetarian is something to think about. It’s just one of the many choices you’ll get to make in life. It might be right for you—but it might not.

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Ordering pizza can be a lot easier than cooking for a group of people, so families often order delivery to save time or make life easier. Remember that there are healthy, simple choices that you and your family can make instead of calling for pizza!

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How Does Food Fit into My Life? Food has to fit into our lives. We can’t just forget to eat. But some of us choose to sit down and eat every meal at a table. Others choose to eat on the go. And others might eat at restaurants all the time. If your family always makes time for food, great! A lot of the time, sitting down to eat means that your family cares about healthy food. But some families are too busy to sit down to eat. Parents work late. Kids have to be at practice. Families on the go don’t always have time to make healthy meals. They go through the fast food drive-through. Or order delivery. There are ways to choose healthy foods on the go though. You don’t have to eat salty french fries all the time. Healthy food choices can be made even at fast-food restaurants. More and more fast-food places are offering healthier choices like salads and fresh fruit. Take advantage of these options.

What Can You Eat? Sometimes you just can’t eat something. Your body doesn’t let you. If you can’t eat something, you have to think about that when you’re making food choices. When your body overreacts when you eat something, that’s called an allergy. You might get an itchy mouth. Or break out in a rash. Serious allergies can make you really sick. Lots of people have food allergies. Peanuts and other nuts are common allergies. Some people are allergic to shellfish (like shrimp). And eggs. And soy. You have to stay away from foods if you’re allergic to them. Be careful when you order food in restaurants. Tell the waiter what you’re allergic to. Be sure your teacher knows at school. He can help you choose the right food to eat in the cafeteria. Some kids are lactose intolerant. That’s not exactly an allergy. It means the body can’t digest milk.

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You can make better food choices when you know more about the foods you eat. Reading food labels can give you the information you need to make good choices.

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Still other people are gluten intolerant. They can’t eat gluten. Gluten is something found in some grains, like wheat. Gluten intolerance makes it hard to eat bread. And most baked goods, like cookies and cake. People who can’t eat gluten have to be careful. Gluten is in a lot of hidden places. If you’re gluten intolerant, you’ll have to learn to read the lists of ingredients on food labels. It can be hard to stay away from things like milk and bread. What happens if someone at school has a birthday and they bring in a cake? The cake is made out of eggs, milk, and wheat flour (which has gluten). You have to make good choices if you can’t eat something. You don’t want to end up getting an allergic reaction. Or feeling sick to your stomach. Luckily, it’s getting easier to make the right choices. Grocery stores sell gluten-free foods. And schools try to help everyone join in celebrations without having to starve. If your teacher knows you can’t have gluten, maybe she has another choice you can eat. Don’t be embarrassed to tell people if you can’t eat something. Lots and lots of people in the world have the same problem.

Food Labels Take a look at the next package of food you open. On the back or side, you’ll find a little chart. It’s called the nutrition facts label. Food labels list all of the things that are in the food you’re eating. They list ingredients. They also list the nutrients. You can see how many calories there are. And how much fat, sugar, vitamins, and other things. Once you learn how to read a food label, you’ll know a lot about your food! It’s a good tool to help you make healthy food choices.

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Ways to Support Healthy Nutrition (No Matter What Choices You Make) W

e all make food choices. You can make unhealthy food choices. You can make healthy food choices. Not everyone has to make the exact same choices though. Your food choices depend on who you are. But no matter what choices you make, you can learn how to eat healthy. You’ll feel better. You’ll be happier. And your body will thank you!

Healthy Vegetarianism It’s totally possible to have a healthy diet and be vegetarian. If you do it right, you can be even healthier than when you ate meat. When you don’t eat meat, you probably eat more fruits and vegetables. You eat more grains and beans. Those foods are really good for you. Eating too much meat can be bad for your heart. Too much meat can also make you gain weight. By cutting out meat, you can stop gaining weight. And make sure your heart is healthy. You have to do your research though. You can also be an unhealthy vegetarian. Cutting out meat doesn’t automatically mean you’re healthy. Meat has lots of good nutrients in it. When you stop eating meat, you get less of those nutrients. Vegetarians have to make sure they’re getting enough of them from other foods instead.

Nutrients to Keep an Eye On Here are some of the nutrients a vegetarian needs to look for in their foods—and what they can eat to get them: • Vitamin B12: dairy products and eggs naturally have vitamin B12. Cereals, bread, and some snacks sometimes have it added in. • Vitamin D: milk has a lot, along with orange juice with added vitamin D. • Calcium: dairy products like milk have a lot. Dark green leafy vegetables like kale and broccoli do too. • Iron: whole grains, beans, eggs have iron naturally. Cereal and other foods have it added to them. • Protein: beans, nuts, tofu, and whole grains, as well as dairy products and eggs.

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Vegetarians have to make sure they’re getting all the nutrients their bodies need while not eating meat. Vegetarians have to find other ways of getting the protein most people eat in meat. Dairy foods, eggs, and nuts are all good sources of protein.

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Being a vegan means paying careful attention to the kinds of food you eat. Cheese is just one of the foods that vegans cannot eat because it’s made with animal milk, but many other foods aren’t as easy to recognize as animal products.

Vegans have to be even more careful. Vegans don’t eat meat or dairy products. They don’t eat milk, cheese, eggs, and more. But all those things have healthy nutrients in them. One of the nutrients vegetarians worry about is protein. Usually, people get a lot of protein from meat. Protein keeps our muscles strong. It helps kids grow. Other foods have protein in them. Vegetarians can eat more lentils and beans. They can eat nuts. If they eat animal products, they can have milk and eggs.

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Eating beans and lentils is a good way for vegetarians and vegans to get protein in their diet. A balanced diet is important for all people, but when you choose to stop eating meat and other animal products, you’ll have to make sure you get all the nutrients you need.

If you decide to become a vegetarian, you’ll need to talk to your family about it. If they’ve never thought about being a vegetarian or if they’ve already decided this choice isn’t right for them, they may not feel happy about your decision at first. They may worry that you won’t get enough protein and other nutrients. They may feel like it will take extra time and money to make vegetarian food for you when everyone else in the family is eating differently. Respect all these concerns—but don’t give up. You can teach your

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family about being a vegetarian. Maybe you could start out by eating one vegetarian meal at home every week. You could make a grocery list of healthy vegetarian foods. You could offer to help cook the food!

Breakfast on the Go You should always eat breakfast. Your body needs the fuel in the morning! But finding time to actually sit down and eat can be hard. You can try getting up earlier to eat. That might just not be possible, though. Maybe you have to do homework every night and can’t go to bed until eleven. Then you have to get up at six to get to school on time. You just don’t want to get up a half hour earlier to eat breakfast. You think it’s better to sleep. And sleep is important! But skipping breakfast isn’t going to make your school day any better. If you have other reasons for skipping breakfast, rethink them. Maybe you think you need to lose weight—so you don’t eat breakfast. You think that not eating a meal means you eat fewer calories during the day. And fewer calories means losing weight. That’s not quite true, though. People who skip breakfast actually end up eating more later. They get so hungry that they eat a lot of food later on. You’ll also have less energy during the day. You won’t be able to pay attention in class. You have a hard time running around in gym or playing sports. So not eating breakfast can actually make you gain weight. And make you do worse in school. So you might want to think about getting up just a few minutes earlier to eat breakfast after all! Eat it on the go if you have to, though. Have your family buy fresh fruit like bananas and apples you can take with you. Granola bars are another good choice for a quick breakfast. And yogurt—anything you can carry with you and won’t be too messy. If you do have time to sit down, do it! You can even choose your breakfast the night before. Lay out the bread and peanut butter you’re going to eat. Or the cereal and fruit. Breakfast foods without lots of sugar are best for you. Some cereals have way too much sugar. Pick low-sugar cereal instead. Or whole-wheat toast. Or oatmeal. Or a smoothie. There are lots of healthy breakfast choices. Do some research on the Internet and discover which ones you like best. There’s a world of breakfast choices out there!

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Cereal and fruit can be a great breakfast that’s easy to make quickly. Adding fruit to a cereal that doesn’t have much sugar in it can make your breakfast healthy and delicious!

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Vitamins Do you take a vitamin every day? Vitamin pills are one way to help you get some of the nutrients you need every day. They aren’t the best way, though. The best way is to eat the right kinds of healthy food. But vitamins can be a good choice if you can’t seem to get enough good stuff from food. Or if you need extra of a certain nutrient. Young people might need extra calcium, for example. It’s important to eat a lot of calcium when you’re young. Then you’ll have strong bones. Vitamins are easy to take. Most vitamins for kids taste kind of like candy (but they’re not!) You just have to remember to take them every day.

Healthy Snacks Snacking is a great idea. But it can get us in trouble when we eat unhealthy snacks. It’s a good thing there are plenty of healthy snacks out there. Healthy snacking follows the same rules that healthy eating in general does. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Eat whole grains and dairy. Stay away from lots of sugar and salt. Here are a few ideas for healthy snacks you can try: • • • • • • • •

ants on a log: celery sticks filled with peanut butter, with raisins on top smoothies made with fruit and fruit juice or milk whole-wheat crackers with cheese and turkey mini whole-grain muffins carrot sticks and hummus baked whole-wheat tortilla chips with fresh guacamole apple slices with maple syrup or honey make-your-own trail mix with nuts, dried fruit, and whole-grain pretzels

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Ants on a log is a great after-school snack that will fill you up and keep you going through the day. There are many kinds of healthy snacks that are better than chips, cookies, or candy.

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Eat a healthy snack at least once a day. Whenever you feel really hungry between meals. Or whenever you feel like you’ve lost all your energy. A healthy snack will keep you going!

Special-Occasion Foods Food should be fun! It shouldn’t be a chore to eat all the time. Hopefully, you’ll learn to like healthy foods. Once you start eating carrots, oatmeal, and other healthy foods, you’ll find the ones you like best. But you don’t have to stop eating unhealthy foods. There aren’t really any bad foods. They’re just unhealthy if you eat too much of them. For example, we need sugar to live. We need a little bit every day. We don’t need sugary foods at every meal though.

Looking at the serving size and the number of servings in a package of food can be a great way to make sure you eat in moderation.

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The United States government uses MyPlate to show Americans how much of each kind of food they should be eating at each meal. Governments around the world have similar ways of telling their people about healthy eating. Many use food pyramids to show each kind of food.

Your goal should be to eat more healthy foods. And fewer unhealthy ones. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever eat cake or chips again though. Feel free to eat sugary, salty, fatty foods on special occasions. If it’s your birthday, What Does don’t pass up your favorite bag of chips. If it’s Thanksgiving, it’s okay to eat the pie. Moderation Mean? The key is moderation. That means not eating too much of something. Think of unModeration means not too little healthy foods as treats, rather than all-theand not too much. It’s that perfect time foods. You’ll find you enjoy them even place right in the middle. more.

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Good

Bad

Broiled Steamed Blackened Baked Roasted Light Fresh Grilled Sauteed

Fried

Battered Buttery Creamy Crispy Cheesy Thick Breaded Smothered

Sometimes the words on the menu can tell you whether a food is healthy or not. Watch for words that might mean extra salt, sugar, or fat.

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A Healthy Attitude You should feel good about food. You should be proud of the food choices you make. Food shouldn’t make you feel bad. It helps to have a healthy attitude about food. Feeling good about eating usually means you’re trying to make healthy food choices. You’re doing what’s best for you. One important rule is to never stop eating. Human beings need to eat to live. Not eating makes us tired, weak, and can even kill us. So any food is better than no food! Sometimes young people stop eating. They feel like food is making them fat. They have a mental illness that makes them think they are fat, even if they are actually very skinny. They stop eating. That’s called anorexia. Or they eat and then make themselves throw up. That’s called bulimia. Anorexia and bulimia are kinds of eating disorders. When people have very unhealthy eating habits, they might have an eating disorder. These disorders are serious sicknesses. If you think you have one, you need to get help. Or if you think a friend has an eating disorder, try to get her to see a doctor or talk to an adult who can help. But you can also have a bad attitude about food and not have an eating disorder. Are you a picky eater? Do you hate to try new foods? If you are, it doesn’t mean you have an eating disorder. But you should rethink your attitude. Trying new foods can be healthier. Lots of kids only like to eat a few foods. Those foods are usually not that healthy. They eat macaroni and cheese. And french fries. And pizza. Does that sound like you? Do you think you hate fruits and vegetables? Do you only eat foods you know you like? A lot of young people are like that. It can be scary to try new foods. But by trying new foods, you’ll find more things that are tasty. You’ll find out new things to enjoy. You’ll have new choices to pick from. For example, let’s say you think you hate all fruits and vegetables. Have you tried every fruit and vegetable there is? No, probably not. And now that you think about it, you do like grapes.

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Eating healthy is easier when you find healthy foods that you want to eat. An apple can be as sweet as any dessert and it’s a much healthier choice than a slice of cake!

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That’s a place to start. So you try a couple more fruits. You discover you like tangerines but not bananas. You like strawberries but not blueberries. That’s okay. You don’t have to like everything you try. But at least you tried. Nothing bad happened! And you found two new foods you liked. And now you’re getting more good stuff from what you eat. By adding new fruits to your diet, you’re getting vitamin C and other good nutrients. As you get older, you’ll be faced with more and more choices. Food choices are some of the most important decisions you’ll have to make. By picking healthy foods to eat, you’ll be stronger and happier. You’ll be ready to face the world.

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Find Out More Online

Calorie Count caloriecount.about.com

KidsHealth: Ready, Set, Breakfast! kidshealth.org/kid/nutrition/food/breakfast.html KidsHealth: What’s a Vegetarian? kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/vegetarian.html Sprout Recipes sproutonline.com/crafts-and-recipes

In Books

Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic Kids’ Cookbook. Intercourse, Penn.: Good Books, 2012. Naik, Anita and Melissa Sayer. Too Fat? Too Thin? The Healthy Eating Handbook. New York: Crabtree Publishing, 2009. Schwarz, Ellen. I’m a Vegetarian: Amazing Facts and Ideas for Healthy Vegetarians. Plattsburg, New York: Tundra Books, 2002.

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Index allergies 27 animal(s) 10–12, 25, 34 attitude 43

meals 7, 12, 14, 27, 40 meat 10–12, 15, 23, 25, 32–35 minerals 16, 22–23

beliefs 23, 25 breakfast 1, 3, 12–14, 16, 36–37, 46

nutrients 12, 14, 22–23, 29, 32–35, 38, 45

calorie(s) 7, 14, 22, 24, 29, 36

processed food 15–17 protein 7, 32-35

diabetes 23

restaurants 6, 15, 18, 27

eating disorder(s) 43 energy 14, 16, 18, 22–23, 25, 36, 40

snacks 14, 32, 38–39 sugar 16–17, 23, 29, 36–38, 40–42 Super Size Me 16

factories 15–16, 25 family 6, 15, 25–27, 35–36 fast food 15–16, 27, 36 food label(s) 22, 28–29 fresh food 15–16 gluten intolerance 29 grocery store 9, 18–19, 29

vending machine 10, 14 vegetarian 10–12, 25, 32–36, 46 vitamin(s) 16, 22, 29, 32, 38, 45 weight 6, 14–15, 17, 22–23, 32, 36 whole grain(s) 7, 16, 32, 38

lactose intolerant 27 local food 18

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About the Author & Consultant Kim Etingoff lives in Boston, Massachusetts, spending part of her time working on farms. Kim has written a number of books for young people on topics including health, history, nutrition, and business. Dr. Borus graduated from the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed a residency in Pediatrics and then served as Chief Resident at Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center before completing a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is currently an attending physician in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Picture Credits Bumble Bee Tuna: p. 24 ChooseMyPlate.gov: p. 41 Dreamstime.com: Ariwasabi: p. 17 Asterixvs: p. 40 Azurita: p. 39 Brandon Bourdages: p. 37 Francesco Alessi: p. 35 Lisa F. Young: p. 26 Lunamarina: p. 44 Monkey Business Images: p. 8, 20, 25, 30 Steven Cukrov: p. 28 Sebastian Czapnik: p. 34 Tomo Jesenicnik: p. 11 Tyback: p. 13 Lorma Linda University: p. 33 To the best knowledge of the publisher, all other images are in the public domain. If any image has been inadvertantly uncredited or miscredited, please notify Vestal Creative Services, Vestal, New York, 13850, so that rectification can be made for future printings.

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