Week 10
Class 1: Vitamins and Minerals
Vitamin means ‘vital for life’. Vitamins and minerals are compounds necessary for the healthy functioning of our bodies. We need vitamins and minerals to help us grow, to see correctly, to form bones, muscles, skin and organs, as well as to help us battle infections. Deficiencies in certain vitamins and minerals can lead to severe problems.
The best way to ensure you are receiving enough vitamins and minerals for healthy growth and development is to eat a wide variety of fresh foods from the five food groups.
Let's start with a little introductory presentation:
1. We can store some vitamins in our body for future needs, and some others we need to eat them in a regular basis not to get sick. Read the TeensHealth website (under the title "what are vitamins and minerals") and explain which ones do we store? which ones don't? and why does this happen?
2. Go to the BYJUS website and:
a) Write the name of fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins
b) Complete the Venn diagram for vitamins and minerals, taking into account their similarities and differences:
3. Visit the website BETTERHEALTH website and complete this information about some of the most important vitamins (you can search for key words in the text to make the search easier):
a) Receiving sunlight is necessary to produce this vitamin: ______________________
b) Its deficiency can cause blindness: ______________________
c) Vitamin in charge of blood clotting and wound healing (coagulación): _____________
d) Their deficiency can cause osteoporosis (1 vitamin and 1 mineral): ___________________
e) Mineral that is essential to make thyroid hormone: ________________
4. Choose 4 vitamins and 4 minerals and create a crossword with clues using the 8 nutrients you chose. For the clues use their function. The Harvard website has a list of vitamins and minerals you can use to choose the ones you are going to use and the BBC website and healthykids has some of their functions. Here you have an example of a crossword:
“Have you ever grabbed a snack and noticed a
little table on the back with numbers and
strange words like ‘saturated fat’ or ‘serving
size’? That’s a food label!
Food labels are like a secret code that tells
you what’s really in your food — how much
sugar, fat, protein, and energy it gives you.
Today, we’re going to learn how to read
them like scientists!
By the end of this class, you’ll be able to spot
healthy choices, understand tricky terms, and
even compare two products to see which one
is better for your body. So next time you're at
the store or packing lunch, you’ll be the
nutrition expert! 🥦🍫📊
1) Go throught the tables in the lab, in each side choose 1 food and write for every 100 grams or 100 ml:
Energy/Kcal:
Total fat
Total carbohydrates
Added sugars
Protein
Vitamins (name them)
MInerals (name them)
2) Write the names of the foods you analyzed in an increasing order of
Calories
Total fat
Total carbohydrates
Added sugars
Protein
Vitamins
Minerals
3) Which food gives us more Kcal? is it healthy or not?
4) From the 8 foods you wrote which one is the most complete in terms of nutrients?, Which one is the least healthy?
5) Write 2 conclusions about the use of nutritional labels.
Class 2: Food Labels
