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Megan Hovey

NTR 211 Spring 2016


Menu Planning Project
Client Group
I am currently volunteering every Wednesday for a few hours at
a Food Pantry in Ballston Spa, NY. I have witnessed many low-income
individuals come in the pantry very grateful for the service we provide
for them. Unfortunately there is a large low-income group prevalent in
the surrounding towns. Luckily, for them, the pantry is a great place to
come and receive food for the week.
I decided to choose (specifically) low-income young women
ranging from 20-35 years of age for my client group. These individuals
are women that visit the food pantry that I volunteer at. If they do not
get to the food pantry each week they often dont know where their
next meal will be coming from. Food insecurity and obesity often are
associated with one another. I will be focusing on healthy, nutrient
dense foods for them but will have to be very creative with the choices
as cost and limited products are two huge factors. I would hope my
client group would be able to access a famers market to receive some
fresh produce that we unfortunately cannot provide at the pantry.
Luckily there is a farmers market right in Ballston Spa and there are
two in Saratoga Springs.
Three nutritional goals that will be addressed on my menu for
these individuals would be purchasing the most affordable foods

(including beverages) they have access to (ie transportation issues),


consuming nutrient dense food by limiting processed food (processed
food is much more affordable and also more accessible to get than full
grain, veggies and fruits), and lastly focusing on preparing three meals
a day (often times low income individuals will skip meals which can
lead to overeating and obesity and/or eating disorders).
Three essential characteristics of my group that must be
addressed would be transportation (how will they get to the pantry or
farmers markets without a car), psychological (knowing that you need
help from the community to receive free foods and the affect that has
on your mental state), and lastly nutritional factor (the foods at the
food pantry are often canned with added sugars and we do not have
fresh produce available for individuals that come through).
Nutrition Analysis
A thorough three-day nutrition analysis was completed for Sally
Wayfair, age 28. Sally weighs 160 pounds and is 5 feet 6 inches tall.
She is not pregnant, she is not a smoker, does not have a strict diet,
and is low active. Sally is still a bit overweight but is in the process of
losing weight and maintaining her weight loss by keeping up with a
healthier diet rich in key nutrients.

Interpretation

Sally consumed on average 1,797 kcal per day. The recommended


average intake for her profile was 2,284 kcal. I was below range for
Sallys recommended average kcal intake, however, I intentionally
wanted to give her a lower calorie diet to maintain her weight loss.
The DRI for protein was 58.06 grams and Sallys average intake was
100.74 grams. I was well above range for Sallys protein intake. The
DRI for carbohydrate was 256.95-371.15 grams and Sallys average
intake was 226.42 grams. I was just below range for Sallys
carbohydrate intake. Lastly, the DRI for fat was 50.76-88.82 grams
and Sallys average intake was 61.11 grams. I was within range for
Sallys fat intake.
I would note her diet was rich in essential fatty acids (linoleic 72%
DRI goal, and linolenic 88% DRI goal).

Her diet was also rich in

vitamins and minerals. Besides Vitamin D, Sally was well over 50% of
the DRI goals.
Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges for adults (as a
percentage of kcals) are as follows: Protein: 10-35%, Fat: 20-35%, and
Carbohydrates: 45-65%. Sallys AMDRs fell within a reasonable range
of the recommended AMDRs. Sallys AMDRs are as follows: Protein
22% (403 kcal), Fat: 31% (550 kcal), Carbohydrates: 50% (906 kcal).
To further break down fat, Sallys average intake of monounsaturated
fat was 10%, polyunsaturated fat was 5%, saturated fat was 10%, and
unspecified fat was 5%.

As mentioned previously, Sally was below 50% of DRI goal for


Vitamin D (at 39%). This was the only category she was below 50% in.
To help her vitamin D requirements increase I would give her more
eggs, yogurt and tuna canned in water. All three of these options are
high in vitamin D. We need vitamin D in our diet to absorb calcium and
promote bone growth. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to breast
cancer, colon cancer, heart disease, depression, and weight gain.
As far as Sallys water intake, she most definitely should be drinking
more. Sally was only at 50% DRI goal for water. I accidentally missed
adding in water in her diet analysis. The majority of water accounted
for (in this report) came from her fruits, vegetables, and milk. It is
extremely important to consume water to help transport nutrients,
maintain the balance of body fluids, to help the flow of blood
circulation, to help aid digestion, and to help with the protection of
movements of joints.
Unfortunately, Sallys sodium level exceeded the DRI goal. Her
sodium level on average was 2,969 mg per day. Sallys recommended
goal for sodium was 1,500 mg per day. I would need to lower her
intake of sodium by decreasing the amount of canned soups, canned
vegetables, canned fruits and processed cheese she is consuming. My
client shops at her local food pantry for most of her food for the week.
It will be challenging for her to buy fresh produce because of her lowincome status; however, there are outlets in which she can purchase

these items for a lower cost. Each week Saratoga has a farmers
market that is year-round. Ballston Spa also hosts a weekly farmers
market in the fall and summertime. It might be challenging for Sally to
find transportation to these locations but the public bus is a low cost
option for her. Another opportunity could be planting a garden near her
house/apartment. It will be fairly time consuming, but it would be
beneficial to her diet to have fresh produce right her in backyard.
This menu met the fiber intake requirements for Sally. The
suggested DRI for fiber was 25 grams per day and on average she
consumed 32 grams per day. If she were to be below the DRI for fiber I
would increase her vegetable intake, increase her whole grains (for
example oatmeal options for breakfast), and I would add in beans to
her lunch and dinner entrees.
There are a few additional comments I wanted to mention after
reviewing the diet analysis. Sallys kcal average was much lower
compared to what was recommended for her. I intentionally wanted to
give her a very healthy, well-rounded low-fat menu because she is in
the process of losing weight and maintaining her weight loss. Sally is
still considered to be a bit heavy for her height, but she is not obese
any longer. Previously, Sally was consuming a highly processed, highly
saturated fat diet, which unfortunately is the common diet for a lot of
low-income/poverty communities.

As mentioned in previous sections of this report, I volunteer at a


food pantry in Ballston Spa and majority of customers that come in are
either overweight or obese. This is often the case because we have
highly processed food available at the food pantry that often contains a
high amount of sodium and added sugars. It is also because foods that
tend to be processed are lower in costs than that of a high-nutrient
meal or snack. Refined grains, added sugars, and fats are generally
inexpensive, palatable, and readily available in low-income
communities.
I wanted to improve Sallys diet because I know so many customers
that do not know how to eat correctly and are therefore, gaining
additional unwanted weight. With the added weight and unhealthy
lifestyle, it often leads to health consequences.

I would also like

to mention Sallys high sugar intake, which was a surprise to me after


generating this report. Sally consumed on average 95 grams of sugar
each day. There is no suggestion for sugar intake on this report but it
has been said that a female should consume no more than 25 grams of
sugar per day. I did have dessert on the menu two nights out of the
three days. Even though I want Sally to have a low-fat low-kcal diet, I
also want her to enjoy food and have fun with it, which might mean
treating herself to two small cookies once or twice a week.
If I were to do the menu again, I would cut out some added sugars
in her diet to decrease her high intake of sugars. For example, I could

give her plain low-fat yogurt versus strawberry low-fat yogurt which
has oftentimes has 15-20 grams of sugar per serving. I would also try
to cut out the processed cheese that I had on her menu each day. This
was a large part of her high sodium intake for example one serving of
the low-fat processed cheese was 761 mg. Ideally, it would be great
for her to have a natural cheddar cheese but again, this could be
challenging considering her main source of groceries come from the
food pantry. Seldom we will receive natural cheese, most of the time it
is processed cheese. In this case, Sally can change her meals
accordingly if the pantry is sold out of natural cheeses.

Food Selection
I believe this food plan satisfied the organoleptic and aesthetic
requirements of a good menu. People choose food based on primarily
how it looks, smells, tastes, feels and sounds. If a dish is bland, boring
and has no aroma it wont be appealing to eat.
For Saturdays breakfast I gave Sally 1 cup of coffee, 2 eggs, 1
whole grain English muffin with butter and a side of blueberries. On
her plate she would have the bright yellow tint of the eggs, brown color
of the whole grain English muffin with white butter added to it, and a
side of bright blue blueberries. Color can indicate the ripeness and
degree to which the food was heated. The color palette of foods on a
plate also contributes to or detracts from their appeal (Brown, 2014,

p. 1). This particular breakfast also gave Sally an aesthetically


appealing dish while considering the sizes and shapes of the foods. All
items on this breakfast menu range from small (blueberries) to
medium (English muffin) to large (scrambled eggs).
Wednesdays dinner called for a tasty quesadilla dish. This
quesadilla was salty and spicy (salt, pepper, garlic, and chili powder),
had a creamy umami mouthfeel (from the sour cream and cheese) and
a sweet crunch (cooked onions). Each of these items used in the food
preparation contains several compounds and while they combine
together it creates new tastes when the compounds interact (Brown,
2014, p. 3).
Along with pleasing Sallys organoleptic senses with this dish, the
quesadilla dinner created variety and creativity. The variety in this
dish was the largest on her menu she had spices, cheese, sour
cream, chicken and a flour wrap all in one dish. It can also be a very
creative dish because you can easily modify it. If a friend was
vegetarian you could replace the chicken with beans, and if a friend
was dairy free it would be easy to remove the sour cream and cheese
from his or her dish.
The smell of food is almost as important as appearance when
evaluating food (Brown, 2014, p. 2). Sally had a Honey Chicken Dinner
on Saturday night. This dish filled her home with a sweet warm aroma.
It was easy to prepare by just mixing in honey, mustard, a dash of salt

and pepper and some olive oil. Certain mustard can have a pungent
acrid taste. With the honey combined with the mustard it added a very
sweet fragrant flavor.
For Saturdays lunch Sally had a grilled cheese and a side of black
bean salad. She had a variety of texture in this dish. The black bean
salad was a bit of a cooler, soft side dish and the grilled cheese gave
her that hard crunch and warm bite consistency.
Sally had one cup of hot oatmeal Monday morning. Brown sugar
and raisins were added to it. The brown sugar melted fast due to the
heat of the oatmeal, and it also made the raisins soft and warm. On
the side she had cooled, smooth peaches. This gave her a great
contrast of temperatures in a rich nutritious meal.

Resources
This cost of food and availability of food would greatly affect the
implementation of my menu. As mentioned previously Sally shops at
the food pantry to receive the majority of her groceries, and in this
case the bulk of her groceries would be free. Most of the food items on
my menu for Sally could potentially come from the food pantry but
there are times when we run out of certain items. In this case Sally
would need to get food at a grocery store or farmers market. She
would need to be extremely careful when shopping to ensure she
doesnt spend too much. If she couldnt find or couldnt afford a

particular food item on the menu, she would have to make alterations
to the recipe and/or meal. A large factor in this is transportation. Sally
would need to find either a bus route or a friend or family members
car to make it to the grocery store to find items that werent available
at the pantry.
The preparation time for most of my dishes is very minimal. The
longest preparation time would be both the honey chicken dinner and
the quesadilla dinner but I intentionally looked for recipes that
mentioned easy to prepare or quick to make in their description. I
also wanted to make sure the recipes that I did have would provide her
with leftovers for meals throughout the week this would help Sally
save on time tremendously.
There are certain customers that shop at the food pantry that do
not have a refrigerator, microwave or stove and in that case
preparation of these meals would be nearly impossible unless he or
she was able to either use a local churchs kitchen or a friend or family
members kitchen. In Sallys situation, I had her accessible to a
refrigerator, microwave and stove. If she were not as fortunate I would
have to modify my menu for her. Most of the meals on the menu
require either microwave (ie warming oatmeal with water), stove (ie
cooking chicken) or refrigerator (ie keeping chicken cold).

Reflection

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To summarize my three nutritional goals were to purchase the


most affordable foods, to consume nutrient dense foods by limiting
processed foods, and to focus on preparing three meals a day. I made
my client available to shop at the local food pantry. Customers can
request certain items, which could mean asking for low added sugar
and low sodium food options. I also wanted to make sure Sally felt
comfortable with three full meals a day and two snacks so that she
doesnt skip meals. Often times low-income individuals will skip meals,
which can lead to overeating and obesity and/or eating disorders.
By ensuring I was providing the most healthy food options I could
give Sally, I did meet the nutritional needs of my client. While I did
come below recommended kcal for Sally, I intentionally wanted her to
have a lower kcal diet. Overall her intake of vitamins, minerals and
essential fatty acids were above average. I feel as if I provided her
with as much nutrient rich foods I could think of considering the client
group I was working with.
While I feel confident for the most part with her overall menu
choices, there are a few modifications I would make to Sallys menu.
Providing Sally with fresh produce from a local farmers market would
enhance her diet even further. If fresh produce was not available or
was too expensive, she has the options of the low sodium canned fruits
and vegetables. My second modification would be to lower her
sodium intake by taking out processed cheese and decreasing her

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consumption of canned soups, canned vegetables, and canned fruits. I


would also like to see an increase Sallys Vitamin D intake. This is the
only vitamin she was below in.
Lastly, I would like to lower Sallys sugar consumption by decreasing
the amount of added sugars in diet, such as the low-fat strawberry
yogurts and switching them out to low-fat plain yogurts.
There are a few ways in which I can make my menu more
aesthetically appealing and nutritionally superior for Sally. For Monday
nights dinner I had Sally eat 1 cup of whole grain past with some diced
tomatoes and cannellini beans. Looking back on it, it seems pretty dull
and bland. It is easy to prepare but it is not as aesthetically appealing
as it could have been. Instead I would have make 1 cup whole grain
pasta with cup of tomato sauce with chopped carrots and chopped
ground turkey added into it. It would be a simplified Bolognese sauce.
To add more of an appeal I would add a small amount of Parmesan
cheese on top. It would be very likely that she would be more inclined
to choose the meal that is more aesthetically appealing.
On Wednesdays menu for a snack I had Sally eat cup
blueberries, 1 low-fat strawberry yogurt and 1 handful of peanuts.
After looking into the sugar content of her diet I realize now that snack
is not as nutritionally superior to her other snacks and meals. The lowfat strawberry yogurt had about 16 grams of sugar which is much
higher than I thought. I would change this snack to a plain low-fat

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yogurt with the added cup blueberries, a large glass of water, and I
would cut out the peanuts. The dinner she was having that night was a
bit heavier, so a lighter snack on this day would suffice.
I do realize there would be roadblocks and challenges along the way
while trying to follow a menu such as the one I created, but I believe
with the more education and knowledge of what is available in the
community, we would be able to help many individuals that are in
poverty stricken neighborhoods and communities to become healthier
people.

References
Brown, A. (2014.) Understanding Food Principles and Preparation (5th
ed.)

Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

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