Nutrition and Meals

Context

SCIENCE/ Nutritional deficiency diseases

SCIENCE/ Healthy Nutrition

SCIENCE/ Meal planning and presentation

SCIENCE/ Packed meals

1) Nutritional deficiency diseases

What are nutritional deficiency diseases?

Diseases caused by a lack of a paticular nutrient in the diet.

Especially children are affected.

What are examples for nutritional deficiency diseases?

• Aenemia
• Kwashiorkor
• Marasmus

What are the causes of kwashiorkor?

• Lack of protein food in the diet, especially when the mother stops breastfeeding
• Can also happen as consequence of a heavy infection such as malaria, diarrhoea, measles, tuberculose and intestinal worms

Worksheet 1 “Symptoms”

find the worksheet here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjFmYzA1ZDM0MWRjMzBmMDk

What is wrong with this children? What happened to them?

Malnutrition. They suffer a lack of a paticular nutrient in the diet.

The first baby is sick with kwashiorkor. The second baby suffers from marasmus.

We note down the symptoms next to the picture:

1)      Kwashiorkor: lack of protein food

• Oedema (swelling because of accumulation of water)
• Big tummy (because of enlarged liver)
• poor appetite
• diarrhoea and vomiting
• loss of weight
• failure to grow
• skin peels off
• hair looks thin and straight
• mental retardation (no proper development of brain)

2)      Marasmus: lack of any kind of food

• Good appetite
• Thin
• Little development of muscles
• Wrinkled skin
• Failure to grow
• Looking alert (=bright/alarmed)
  
  

Prevention

• Giving the child enough food
• Giving the child enough protein food (milk)
• Balanced diet
• De-worming children regularly

Worksheet 2: “Sample story in Malawi”

find the worksheet here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjdmMTgzMWY3OTU0M2ZiODg

2) Healthy Nutrition

Worksheet 3: “Right nutrition pyramid”

find the worksheet here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjI0NWFkYzEwZGU0MzdlNg

Explain on the sheet:

• This are the 7 food groups (List examples for each food group.)
• We should have a lot of the food groups from the bottom – beverages (mainly water), fruits and vegetables, grain food
• We should only have small amounts of the food groups at the top of the pyramid – fats and sweets
• All food groups have to be included in our diet! (Only not in same amounts)
• If we follow these instructions, we have a balanced diet.

What is a source of protein food?

• Milk and dairy product
• Meat, fish and eggs

What is a source of carbohydrates?

• Grain food

How much beverages/water should we have per day?

• At least 1,5 litres. (show 3 small 500ml bottles)

I found this on a wall in Dedza (Malawi).

Meal planning and presentation

1) What is a meal?

A meal is a set of dishes eaten together at a specific time:

Breakfast (meal eaten in the morning)

Lunch (meal eaten at noon)

Dinner/supper (meal eaten in the evening)

2) Our favourite meals

We write a list of our most cherished meals!

-         rice with boiled eggs and tomatoes, onions, oil, salt

-         spaghetti with tomato-sauce

-         maccaroni with Soya Pieces and beef spice

-         sweet potatoes with groundnut-flour, salt

-         fried Irish potatoes (chips) with eggs, mayonese, cabbage salad

-         potato-salad with onions, green pepper, oil (vinegar)

-         nsima with rape and tomatoes

-         tea and mandazi

-         tea and popcorn

-         African cake (made of maize flour, ufa gaiwa) with Sobo

-         Boiled pumpkins

-         Banana-mango-fruit sala

-         Sobo with scones

-         Mphonda

-         Cassava and tea with milk

3) Menu of the week

• I distribute white DinA4 Papers, which the learners cut and fold to small booklets.
• We write “MENU OF THE WEEK” on the front page.
• On the top of each of the following pages we write one day of the week: MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY.
• Task for the learners: Write a menu for each day with your favourites meals! You need to plan a breakfast meal, a lunch, and a supper. Don´t forget to include a beverage for each meal. Include many food groups. On Sunday, think of something especially nice!

Example

BREAKFAST

Tea with milk (powder) and mandazi

LUNCH

Nsima with usipa, oil, onions and tomatoes

Clean drinking water

Desert: mango

DINNER

Sweet potatoes

Tea

Packed meals

The learners bring self-prepared packed meals into class.

1) I emphazise on the advantages of packed meals:

- packed meals are much more nutritious than the sweets that they buy in the tuckshop. Also it is cheaper.
- It helps them against the hunger when they are in class. It´s much easier to concentrate when one is not hungry.

2) We look at each of the packed meals and give "marks" for any fulfilled factor:

- the food is not spoiled when transported
- the food must be easy to eat using one´s hand
- the food includes many different food groups
- the food gives enough energy
- the packed meal includes a drink

Packed meals that my learners brought:
- boiled maize
- roasted maize
- boiled irish potatoes with tomatoes and onions
- fried eggs
- popcorn

other suggestions:
- mandazi
- bread/ scones
- fruit (bananas, mangos, guavas)
- boiled/roasted sweet potatoes
- boiled/roasted cassava

3) I bake small bread buns for my learners

Each bun has the size of a pingpong ball.

Ingredients for 30 buns (Cost 325 Malawian kwacha = less than 1 €)
1/2 kg bread flour
2 eggs

yeast

salt

4) I bring plastic bottles in class

• We had many empty 250ml bottles in the house so I brought them to school. Now I know that it would have been better to give the learners the bottle with a condition (especially a good tip when you don´t have enough bottles for everyone): First they have to do a kind of homework.
• But anyway, I emphasized again on the importance of drinking a lot of water during the day (3 or 4 of these bottles!) and made them promise to bring the bottles every day to school, filled with water. They were allowed to drink from this bottles in class, but not to go out anymore to drink from the well, like they had done before.
• I have to admit that after some weeks I wasn´t very strict with that rules. But still, some of the learners brought their water bottles to class each and every day, up to the final closing day of the school!