Food Pyramid Menus

Eating well should be a part of everyone's daily routine, and The Food Guide Pyramid put out by the USDA is a great guideline for doing just that. The Food Guide Pyramid is a pyramid that is divided into 6 categories of food. Each group lists the suggested minimum and maximum daily food requirements (See Picture Below). People are encouraged to consume more food from the food groups that appear towards the bottom of the pyramid and less food from the food groups that appear towards the top of the pyramid.

To help students learn how to create balanced meals, our students invented imaginary restaurants that serve only healthy meals based on The Food Guide Pyramid's daily suggestions. In fact, each restaurant made a guarantee that if all 3 daily meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) were eaten there, that the consumer would have gotten all of his/her daily recommended allowances. To help students get ideas for the different meals they could plan, we used a number of cookbooks as well as looking at menus from other restaurants. For this project, students worked in groups of 3 or more and had to complete the following tasks:

* Create a balanced meal for breakfast, lunch, & dinner
* Set prices for each of their meals
* Come up with a restaurant name and creative cover for the menu

Starting with kingdom, the groups are very large. In fact, every living organism can be placed into one of five kingdoms. However, as you work your way down the list, the groups become narrower and narrower until you finally reach the exact species of a particular organism.

When students finished the menus, they were laminated for authenticity

You may view our students Food Pyramid Menus by clicking here.