A nutritional experience

Today was a Fun with Fitness day. Fun with Fitness is my (Jen's) after-school wellness program with area school age kids. We had a wonderful nutrition experience today at our local HyVee store. Elaine Hammes, the dietitian here at GRMC, works as a dietitian at HyVee and gave us a very interesting, kid-friendly presentation. She described the importance of healthy eating and using moderation. She also explained HyVee's NuVal system and ways to make it work for us. Those of you who aren't familiar, HyVee has instituted a nutritional rating system from 1-100. Their criteria include fiber, sugar content, various nutrients, etc... All those things that can make choosing healthy food a headache. Personally to have a rating system helps me because while I know I want whole wheat bread, there are still several other factors that go into choosing the best kind. This just makes a shopper more confident in their choices. Elaine made the system into a game for the kids. They had to guess what items matched with which NuVal score. There were some that were surprising results on both ends of the spectrum. A few were pretty disappointed with mac and cheese's ultra low score. Everyone was impressed with orange's perfect 100. Afterwards we went shopping for a snack. The kids did a great job perusing the aisles. A few of them tried to sneak cookies by me but I could refer them to the NuVal so it was very simple. A big thanks to Elaine and HyVee for allowing us to come!