Teaching with Technology: Nutrition and SuperTracker Application

Dear Colleagues:

This is a continuation of the discussion for National Nutrition Month.

In my search to find a suitable snack (instead of potato chips), I ran across a recipe on the OldWays website (resources for traditional recipes) Aleppo-Style Red Pepper and Peanut Dip.  I put the recipe ingredients in, one at a time, into SuperTracker and clicked on snack.  Up came the calories for the entire recipe.  I did need to divide the total by the number of servings (6 servings) to get the nutritional information per serving.  Adding a small pita and a medium carrot for “dippers,” I ended up with fewer calories, much less sodium, much more fiber, and lower total and saturated fat than my usual snack.  Not quite every ingredient is in the database (for example, molasses but not pomegranate molasses) so it may be difficult to analyze every traditional recipe.  Are there recipes that your students mention that they could use?

Clearly, along with computer skills, learners would need to explore the ChooseMyPlate framework (many nutrition lessons still use the pyramid that could be adapted) and learn the vocabulary terms associated with reading the nutrition fact.  Starting on page 53 of the SuperTracker Nutrition Lesson Plans for High School Students, is a fairly detailed glossary.  Quizlet has a series of examples of simpler terms that can be made into flashcards.

More on nutrition as content and the CCR and Next Gen Science Standards tomorrow.

Cynthia