Vary Your Veggies

Primary Message: Eating a variety of vegetables in a salad, or anytime, increases the amount of vitamins and minerals in the meal, which makes the meal healthier.
 
After watching Healthy Hannah’s Healthy Choice Heroes repeat the question asked by Healthy Hannah:  How do you vary your veggies?  Are you making a healthy choice by eating a rainbow of colorful vegetables?
 
Have students list examples of vegetables they are currently eating
Have students list examples of different colored vegetables (or classify the ones they currently eat.  Can they think of more?)
 
Objective #1: Define vocabulary words  - vitamin and mineral
 
Objective #2: Identify the vegetable portion of MyPlate
Activity:  Allow students to read the vegetable portion of https://www.choosemyplate.gov/vegetables.   Students can research vegetable subgroups, serving sizes, what is a cup, etc.  The teacher can direct students to click on “Food Gallery” on the Left menu, and look over a list of vegetables.  Allow students to research different vegetables they have never eaten before.  Students should create a google slide with their vegetables information (A rubric could include: a photo, nutritional information, where it is grown, is it eaten raw? Cooked?)  These can be left on display for other students to walk around the room to learn about different vegetables.  The teacher could also assign these, to reduce the amount of duplicates.
 
Objective #3: Describe the health benefits of eating a variety of vegetables.
Activity:   Have all students read the article TIPS: Vary your Veggies (https://www.choosemyplate.gov/vegetables-tips).  After reading, allow students to choose a side to debate the following question:  “It is healthier to eat a variety of vegetables.”  Allow students time to re-read the text and write down examples of talking points to reference during the debate.   This could be done whole class or in smaller individual groups as well.

Student slide 
Teacher observation of student debate