Food Variety -
delicious and healthy!
This information is based on the
publication Food
Secrets. For more information on Food Variety, see Food Secrets.
One of the key concepts of Nutrition Week
1999 was Food Variety and Physical Activity. Even though Nutrition Week is
over, Nutrition Australia is promoting the concept of 30:30. That
is, eat around 30 different foods each day and do around 30 minutes of
exercise. Don't know if you can? The information in this fact sheet will
show you how to increase your food variety!
Nutrition Australia encourages Australians
to eat around 30 different foods each day. It is important to note that
"30" is based on individual foods, not food categories as detailed in
the Food Variety Checklist for
a week. Ideally, 20 - 30 different types of foods should be eaten every
day. A good way to start increasing your food variety is to follow the two
basic steps Nutrition Australia recommends:
-
Use the Food
Variety Checklist and calculate your score
to see what you're eating for the week. Even if you score
'Fair', aim for the 'Good' level next week, and so on until you score 'Very
Good'. Nutrition Australia encourages long term improvements to your diet,
not short term ones.
-
Once you have achieved 'Very Good' for
the week, then you're on the way to aim for eating around 30 different foods
each day. The aim is to eat around 30 different foods each day,
however some days might not be as good as others. We encourage you to
just try each day to eat a variety.
What is food variety?
By food variety we mean a mixture of foods
across the whole range of food types, such as fruit, vegetables, cereals, meat,
fish and dairy products. Variety also means the range of foods within each of
these types, e.g. cereals can be wheat, oat, rye, rice, or barley. We encourage
a variety of foods to be eaten because the nutritional effect can be very
different both within each food type and between food types.
Which foods should I add?
Use the Healthy
Eating Pyramid to help you choose a wide variety of foods.
Eating a wide variety of foods offers all the nutrients we need.
Choose foods which already provide
variety, such as eating multi grain breads. Alternatively a Moroccan-style
casserole will provide at least 14 different foods.
The range of foods we choose to eat each
day should make up a balanced diet, consistent with The Healthy Eating Pyramid.
But remember, we should not aim to increase our intake of sugar, sweets,
chocolate, chips and lemonade in an attempt to achieve more food variety!
Easy ways to increase food variety
|
Typical diet |
Suggestions for increased variety |
|
wheat cereals, milk and orange juice
white bread, toasted cheese and tomato
sandwich using margarine for spread
meat and two vegetables
|
muesli with added
sunflower and pumpkin seeds, served with yoghurt and a mixture of fresh or
dried fruits.
sandwich made on multi grain bread with
cheese, chutney, tomato, lettuce and avocado.
chopped lamb fillet cooked with
salt-reduced soy and ginger, served with stir fried vegetables. Couscous
with added nuts and dried fruit. |
|
Total of 11 foods |
Total of 34 foods |
Test your food
variety for a week
Score your food variety by using
the Food Variety Checklist and then check your dietary adequacy using the
Total Food Variety Score.
| Food Variety
Checklist
Score one point for each food category you
have eaten throughout one week. Count each food category only once. |
Your score |
|
Fruit |
|
| Stone fruit (e.g.
apricot, avocado, cherries, nectarine, olive, peach, plum, prune) |
|
| Citrus (e.g.
orange, lemon) |
|
| Apples |
|
| Bananas |
|
| Berries (e.g.
raspberry, strawberry) |
|
| Grapes (including
raisins, sultanas) |
|
| Melons (e.g.
honeydew, rockmelon, watermelon) |
|
| Pears, nashi |
|
| Tropical fruit
(e.g. guava, jackfruit, lychee, mango, papaya, pineapple, starfruit) |
|
| Date, kiwifruit,
passionfruit |
|
| Vegetables |
|
| Root (e.g. carrots,
sweet potatoes, potatoes, bamboo shoots, beetroot, ginger, parsnip,
radish, water chestnut) |
|
| Leafy greens (e.g.
spinach, cabbage, brussell sprouts, silverbeet) |
|
| Marrow-like (e.g.
cucumber, eggplant, marrow, pumpkin, squash, swede, turnip, zucchini) |
|
| Flowers (e.g.
broccoli, cauliflower, endive, chicory, lettuce) |
|
| Stalks (e.g.
celery) |
|
| Onion (e.g. spring
onion, garlic leek) |
|
| Peppers (e.g.
capsicum) |
|
| Tomatoes, okra |
|
| Legumes/Pulses |
|
| Beans (e.g. green
beans, snow peas, snap beans, dried peas) |
|
| Adzuki, baked
beans, haricot, black beans, black eyed beans, borlotti beans, cannelini
beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, lima beans, lupins, mung beans
(sprouts), pinto beans, soya beans (sprouts), soya milk, bean curd |
|
| Grains and
Cereals |
|
| Wheat ( including
ready-to-eat cereals such as Weetbix, bran flakes, & wholemeal/white
bread) |
|
| Rye (includes
ready-to-eat products) |
|
| Barley (includes
ready-to-eat products) |
|
| Oats (includes
ready-to-eat products) |
|
| Rice (includes
ready-to-eat products) |
|
| Corn (includes
ready-to-eat products) |
|
| All other grains
and cereals (e.g. buckwheat, millet, quinoa, sago, semolina, tapioca,
triticale) |
|
| Meat |
|
| Pork (including ham
and bacon) |
|
| Lamb, beef, veal |
|
| Poultry (e.g.
chicken, turkey, duck) |
|
| Game (e.g. quail,
wild duck, pigeon) |
|
| Game (e.g.
kangaroo, rabbit, venison) |
|
| Liver, brain, all
other organ meats |
|
| Seafood |
|
| Shellfish and
molluscs (e.g. mussels, squid, oysters, scallops) |
|
| Crustaceans (e.g.
prawns, lobster, crabs, shrimps) |
|
| Fatty Fish (e.g.
anchovies, tuna, salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel, kipper, pilchards) |
|
| Fish (saltwater) |
|
| Fish (freshwater) |
|
| Roe (caviar) |
|
| Dairy |
|
| Milk, yoghurt
(without live culture), ice cream, cheese |
|
| Live Cultures
(yoghurt with live culture e.g. acidophilus, bifidobacteria) |
|
| Eggs |
|
| All varieties |
|
| Fats |
|
| Oil |
|
| Hard/soft spreads |
|
| Herbs and Spices |
|
| Use regularly |
|
| Nuts and Seeds |
|
| Almond, brazil,
cashew, chestnut, coconut, hazelnut, peanuts, peanut butter, pecan, pine
nut, pistachio, pumpkin seed, sesame seed, tahini, hommus, sunflower seed,
walnut |
|
| Fermented Foods |
|
| Miso, tempeh, soya
sauce |
|
| Sauerkraut |
|
| All other varieties |
|
| Beverages |
|
| Non-alcoholic (e.g.
tea, coffee, cocoa) |
|
| Alcoholic |
|
| Other |
|
| Sugar, syrup,
honey, confectionary, jam, marmalade, chocolate, soft drinks |
|
| Yeast (e.g.
vegemite, marmite, Brewers yeast) |
|
| Water, including
mineral and spring water |
|
| Total amount of
different foods |
|
Reference: Savige, G.S., Hau-Hage,
B. and Wahlqvist, M.L. Food Variety as Nutritional Therapy. Current
Therapeutics, March 1997, p.62.
Walker, J. and Fisher, G. (1997) Food
Secrets. Brisbane: The Australian Nutrition Foundation (Qld Div) Inc.
How
did you go?
Check your score on food variety
and dietary adequacy using this chart.
|
Total food variety score |
Dietary adequacy |
|
>30/ week |
Very Good |
|
25-29/ week |
Good |
|
20-24/ week |
Fair |
|
<20/ week |
Poor |
|
<10/ week |
Very Poor |
For more information Nutrition Australia recommends:
Back to Food Facts Fact
Sheets Index
[Date Modified: February 2000]
|
