National Nutrition Month® is a nutrition education and information campaign created annually in March by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, formerly the American Dietetic Association.  The campaign focuses attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits.

One purpose of National Nutrition Month is to encourage people to be mindful of what foods they are consuming. Think about this for a minute. Do we take the time to think about foods we eat as energy for our body? Or, do we just cram food down our throats because we are in a hurry? I encourage you this month to start working on a “healthy” relationship with food and be mindful of what you are putting in your body.

With all that said, cooking meals is one of the first steps in developing a healthy relationship with food. Research shows daily calorie intake from foods eaten away from home increased from 18% to 32% in the last 25 years.  Foods eaten away from home tend to be more calorie dense and nutritionally poorer than foods prepared at home, on average. On the flip side, research has also proven that cooking at home allows us to control calories, fat, sodium, and other key ingredients that tend to increase the risk of chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.  By lessening the risk of these chronic diseases, a healthier, longer life can be achieved!  Measuring ingredients correctly is important when it comes to preparing recipes.

Measuring ingredients correctly gives you a desirable outcome and it can reduce calories in recipes. For example, 1 teaspoon of oil has around 45 calories and 5 grams of fat and 1 Tablespoon of oil has around 120 calories and 14 grams of fat. If we are mindlessly pouring oil while sautéing veggies, we can rack up a lot of added calories and fat. Same goes for salt. It is easy to over season with salt, so make sure to break out those measuring spoons.  For example, 1 teaspoon of salt has 2325 mg of sodium and 1 Tablespoon has 6976 mg of sodium.  Our daily recommended allowance from the FDA is 2,300 mg of sodium per day!   Too much sodium in the diet can affect blood pressure.

For more information about National Nutrition Month®, mindful eating or measuring ingredients, please contact Kim Miles, County Extension Agent – Family & Consumer Sciences for Brown County at 325-646-0386 or kamiles@ag.tamu.edu.