THE MYSTERY DISEASE OUTBREAK

(FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL  (6-8) HEALTH CLASS)

Introduction:

There is a problem on our hands and we need your help to solve it. Several people have gotten sick from eating out at one of the local fast food restaurants and many more are still getting sick. We don't know which restaurant is serving the contaminated food. Students or should I say secret detectives your job is investigate and find out what ingredients are the food each restaurant serves. You may choose whatever meal (breakfast, lunch or dinner) you think might have the contaminated food. Explore, research and collect data of the ingredients contained in any one meal served at a local restaurant. Then you will also create your own meal plan to stop people from eating out and getting sick. After all the data is collected, you will use your detective skills to analyze why and if people were getting sick because fast food meals served were unhealthy. Make sure your results are kept in a top secret notebook. HURRY, time is running out!

Task:

This project may be completed individually or with a partner. Your task will be to find nutritional information about one meal from your a local fast food restaurant. Check to see what ingredients might be contaminating the food as well as the nutrtional ingredients. You will also create/ design a meal of your own using the Food Guide Pyramid. You will use the different websites listed below to find and collect all the information you need to complete this assignment.

Below are some questions to help start the brain storming process. Be creative!

Process:

You will go to the different fast food websites listed below. You will choose one meal (either breakfast,lunch or dinner) from your favorite fast food restaurant. You will record the nutritional information from the nutrition menu provided on the website. The next part of the this assignment is to CREATE/DESIGN your own meal. The meal must be BALANCED, NUTRITITONAL according to the Food Guide Pyramid. The meal must not be the same one you chose from the fast food restaurant.

1. Generally be able to answer the questions above.

2. Designate a top secret notebook to record all your findings (information).

3. Visit the website listed below to gain an understanding of the Food Guide Pyramid.

3. Go to your favorite fast food website listed below.

4. Choose one of your favorite meals (breakfast, lunch or dinner) or something that you might normally order when eating there.

5. Find all the nutritional value information (i.e serving size, caloires from fat, sodium, protein, vitamin A, C, etc) and potential contaminated foods. (i.e maybe the meat in the hamburger was raw) Use your best judgement and guess.

6. Copy all the nutritional value information and possible causes of contaminated ingredients in an organized manner into your secret notebook.

7. Now, design your own meal. Remember, if you chose breakfast as your favorite meal from the fast food restaurant then you must chose either Lunch or Dinner for the meal that you create/design.

8. The meal must be BALANCED AND NUTRITIONAL containing appropiate servings sizes from the Food Guide Pyramid.

9. Create a poster (8 1/2 X 11) demonstrating whawt your OWN balanced and nutritional meal contains. BE CREATIVE!

10. Compare and constrast, in 2-3 paragraphs, the nutritional differences in the fast food meal verses the meal you created.

11. Turn in the information you recorded from your favorite fast food meal.

12. Turn in your compare and contrast paragraph.

13. Present a brief overview (1-2minutes) to the class about something interesting you learned during this activity.

Resources:

http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/nutrition/pyramid.html

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/Fpyr/pmap.htm

http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.mightykidsmeals.index.html

http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.index1.html

http://www.arbys.com/nutrition/Arbys_US_Nutrition.pdf

http://www.wendys.com/food/index.jsp?country=US&lang=EN

http://www.bk.com/Food/Nutrition/NutritionWizard/index.aspx

http://www.subway.com/applications/NutritionInfo/nutritionlist.aspx?CountryCode=USA&ID=sandwich

http://www.tacobell.com/

http://www.yum.com/nutrition/menu.asp?brandID_Abbr=2_KFC

http://www.hogiyogi.com/

Learning Advice:

As you are visiting thess websites, it is important to record your information in an organized manner. A top secret notebook is a good idea. These records and notes will be valuable to you as we continue on in the nutrition unit.

The 8 1/2 x 11 poster should be your own creative design. It can be drawn, collage, scrapbooked, etc. The only requirements are that it must show the meal you designed, not one from the fast food restaurants. Each food on the poster must be labeled by group (fast, fruits, vegetables, meats, etc) according to the Food Guide Pyramid.

Conclusion:

This activity has provided you with basic nutritional information contained in fast food and in the Food Guide Pyramid. You also found out which restaurants served meals high in fat, sodium, carbohydrates, protein, etc. You now know which fast food meals are healthy and which are not so healthly. You also provided many different healthy meals based on the Food Guide Pyramind. The people of the community were given these menu meal plans so they would eat at home instead of eating out. You may not know it, but your hard work and research saved lots of people from getting sick. Thanks, to your detective skills, the number of restaurants serving contaminated foods and unhealthy foods has been narrowed. Your research will evaluated and mystery will soon be solved!! Thanks for your hard work!