Meal Planning

For your assignment in this lesson, you will be assessing your own family's eating habits and then
building a menu for a healthy family dinner. You will base your menu on the MyPlate recommendations.

Instructions: Complete the assignment by following the directions given below.

Step One–Assess Your Family's Eating Habits

Think about your family's current eating habits based on what you have learned so far about healthy
eating. Is your family right on track? Are there any habits your family could improve? Collaborate with
your family members to discuss their eating habits.

Step Two–Gather Your Food Plan

1. Go to the MyPlate Daily Checklist at ChooseMyPlate.gov.

2. Enter your individual characteristics and select the Start button to calculate your recommended
caloric intake.
3. Once you have your recommended caloric intake, scroll down, and select the recommended
caloric intake from the correct age group.
4. Save your personal food plan.

Step Three–Create Your Family Menu

Using your MyPlate food plan as a guide, create a healthy dinner menu for your family. You should
collaborate with your family members regarding foods they might enjoy on your menu. You may
complete this on a Word Document or through another program. Remember to consider the amount of
recommended calories and healthy variety from all food groups, and include portion sizes. 

One thing to note: the MyPlate plan will give you recommendations of food intake for the day, and you
are planning for only one meal.

Step Four–Reflect and Share Your Menu

Once you have entered your menu into the table, answer the questions below.

Sample Menu
Dinner Menu My Plate Category Portion Size
Tuna Casserole wit Grains, Protein, 1 Cup
Caprese Salad Dairy, Vegetables, ½ Cup
Strawberry Shortcake Fruit, Dairy, Grains 4 oz slice angel food cake, 5
large strawberries, 2tbsp Whip
cream
 Dinner Menu My Plate Category Portion Size
Cooked rice Protein, grains ½ cup
Blackberries Fruit 1 cup
Grilled chicken protein 1 ounce

1. How did you assess your family's eating habits? In three sentences, identify what steps you took to
assess their habits and if any habits needed to change.

We eat breakfast and lunch whenever we are hungry. I asked them about their snacking habits, as well
as their lunch and dinner routines. I tried various fruits and switched to late-night snacking to study our
behaviors.

2. How did MyPlate help you create your menu? In three sentences, explain how you used MyPlate as a
guide to create your menu.

MyPlate tracks your age, weight, and height to determine what your calorie intake should be. MyPlate
helped me plan out my meals for the day. It aids in determining what you should be eating more of to
maintain a healthy lifestyle.

3. What was the most difficult part of planning your meal? In three to five sentences, describe what
tasks you thought were difficult to complete in planning your family meal.

The most difficult part of planning my meal was swapping out familiar meals with better, healthier
options such as fruit or protein. Standing firm and sticking to a diet can be hard sometimes. I tried to
make meals based on preference and found some I think ill enjoy.

Criteria Excellent  Satisfactory  Needs Try Again 

Improvement 
Menu  10-9 points 8-7 points 6-5 points 4-0 points
Completeness Menu includes a Menu includes a Menu includes a Menu
variety from all food variety variety includes a
groups and from some food from few food variety
includes appropriat groups and groups and from little to
e serving sizes includes mostly includes some no food
based on MyPlate. appropriate serving appropriate servin groups
 sizes based on g sizes based on and does not
MyPlate. MyPlate. include appr
opriate
serving sizes
based on
MyPlate.
Response  10-9 points 8-7 points 6-5 points 4-0 points
Completeness All questions have Most questions have Some questions Few or
been answered been answered have been no questions
completely and completely and answered have been
clearly. clearly. completely and answered
clearly. completely
and clearly.
Knowledge/ 10-9 points 8-7 points 6-5 points 4-0 points
Understanding Demonstrates Demonstrates Demonstrates Demonstrates
a thorough underst a considerable unde a moderate under a low-level u
anding of the topic. rstanding of the topic. standing of the nderstanding
topic. of the topic.
Presentation 10-9 points 8-7 points 6-5 points 4-0 points
Menu and Menu and responses Menu and Menu and
responses are are written responses are responses
written with some spelling or written are filled with
with no spelling or grammatical with several spelli grammatical
grammatical errors. Most respons ng or grammatical errors
errors. All response es are written using errors. Some resp and difficult
s are written using complete sentences. onses are written to read. Few
complete using complete or
sentences. sentences.  no responses
are written
using
complete
sentences.