Nutrition on Campus COLLEGES AGAINST CANCER AND COLLEGIATE MISSION TOOLKIT

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1 Nutrition on Campus COLLEGES AGAINST CANCER AND COLLEGIATE MISSION TOOLKIT Eat Your Way to Better Heath What Every Coege Student Needs to Know A-nighters, sitting in casses a day, pizza deivery at 2:00 a.m., exam stress, work stress, parties et s face it: even with the best of intentions, a of these things can get in the way of eating we. But they don t have to sidetrack you. With a itte bit of know-how and a ot of practica tips, you can stay (or get) on the path to good heath throughout your coege days and the American Cancer Society can hep. We know that eating we can not ony hep you fee better and give you the energy you need to get through your busy days, but it can aso hep reduce your risk for certain kinds of cancer. That s why we know eating right is so important in coege and beyond. Nutrition and Cancer What s the Connection? It s estimated that 14% of cancer deaths in men and 20% in women are reated to being overweight (New Engand Journa of Medicine, 2003). If you don t smoke, the most important ways to improve your heath and reduce your cancer risk are to watch your weight, be more active, and eat a heathy diet (American Cancer Society Nutrition and Physica Activity Guideines, 2006). Being overweight or obese can increase the risk of many different cancers, incuding cancers of the breast among postmenopausa women and cancers of the coon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, and others. Tips for Eating We at Coege Pay attention to portion sizes. Many portion sizes in dining has, at restaurants, and even when we eat at home have gotten so big that they quicky add up to ots of extra caories. And that adds up to extra weight. An important way to begin to watch your caories without feeing deprived of your favorite foods is to pay attention to how much you re eating. Use these visuas to hep you judge what a standard serving size ooks ike, and see how these compare to your typica portion sizes. Refer to chart beow. Food Standard Serving Size Looks Like, Rice or pasta, cooked ½ cup haf a baseba Cod cerea, popcorn 1 cup a baseba Granoa ¼ cup a gof ba Bread (1 oz) 1 sice a CD case Pancake, waffe 4-inch diameter a CD Appe, peach, etc 1 medium a baseba Berries, cut fruit 1 cup a baseba Dried fruit ¼ cup a gof ba Cut, cooked vegetabes 1 cup a baseba Baked potato/ 1 potato computer mouse sweet potato Hard cheese 1 ounce 4 dice Cheese sice 1 ounce a CD Meat or poutry 3 ounces a deck of cards Fish 3 ounces pam of your hand Feshy white fish 3 ounces your checkbook Sice of sandwich meat 1 ounce a CD Peanut butter 2 tabespoons a wanut in the she Nuts ¼ cup a gof ba Saad dressing 2 tabespoons a shot gass Oive oi 1 teaspoons a water botte cap Butter/margarine 1 teaspoons a posta stamp 1.

2 Add more vegetabes and fruits to your day. Eating more vegetabes and fruits can hep reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer and may even hep with weight contro. Here are ots of different ways to boost your diet with more produce. Breakfast Add berries or raisins to your cerea. Top toasted whoe-grain bread with peanut butter and siced bananas. Add banana sices to your yogurt. Whip up a smoothie with your favorite fruits and yogurt. Add vegetabes such as be peppers, broccoi, spinach, mushrooms, or tomatoes to your scrambed eggs or omeet. Add fruit to your pancake and waffe batter, or top them with fruit, too. Lunch and Dinner Go vegetarian at east once a week. Aways have a saad at either mea (but watch the toppings). Add chopped appes, pears, or raisins to your saads. Add ettuce, tomatoes, and roasted red peppers to sandwiches and wraps. Toss beans in your soup or on your saad. Order the veggie pizza instead of pepperoni or sausage. Add extra chopped or shredded vegetabes to casseroes, soups, stews, sauces, stir-frys, pizzas, and pasta dishes. Have fruit for dessert. Get a fruit topping on your frozen yogurt instead of chocoate chips. Snacks Have a serving of vegetabes or fruit instead of what might be your usua snack of chips, cookies, or ice cream. Snack on vegetabes such as be pepper strips and broccoi with a ow-fat or fat-free ranch dip. Try hummus and whoe wheat pitas as a snack. Enjoy baked tortia chips with back bean and corn sasa. Vegetabe and Fruit Myth Busters Myth: It s gotta be fresh! Truth: Frozen vegetabes and fruit may be even more nutritious since they re frozen so soon after harvesting. By the time fresh produce makes it to your grocery store, some of the nutrients may be ost. Bottom ine: If you buy frozen, ook for vegetabes without added sauces ike cheese and butter, and fruits that don t have any added sugar. Myth: Don t ever eat canned vegetabes and fruits. Truth: Like frozen, canned vegetabes and fruits can be a good nutritiona choice. Bottom ine: Watch out for added sodium in canned vegetabes, and added sugar in canned fruit. (Look for fruit packed in 100% juice.) Myth: Dried fruit is bad for your diet. Truth: Dried fruit can be packed with heath-promoting antioxidants, but it is aso oaded with caories. Bottom ine: When eating dried fruit, watch your portion sizes to avoid extra caories. Myth: Juice isn t good for you. Truth: Juices are high in caories and ow in fiber. (But 100% juice is sti a better choice than soda.) Bottom ine: More often than not, eat the vegetabe or fruit rather than drinking juice. If you do drink juice, be sure it s abeed 100% juice. If it says juice drink, 100% vitamin C, or something such as Made with 100% fruit juice, chances are it s not 100% juice. ( Made with 100% juice means there is SOME juice in the product that s different than the product BEING 100% juice.) What about organic produce? Whie there s no proof that eating organic produce reduces cancer risk, there are certainy other reasons for choosing organic vegetabes and fruit. No matter what you buy, it s aways a good idea to wash your produce we. If you are concerned from a heath perspective, check out this information about produce and pesticide residue: These tend to have the most pesticide residue: Peaches Cherries Appes Pears Sweet be peppers Grapes (imported) Ceery Spinach Nectarines Lettuce Strawberries Potatoes These tend to have the east pesticide residue: Papayas Bananas Asparagus Sweet corn ( frozen) Broccoi Kiwifruit Mangoes Avocados Cabbage Sweet peas ( frozen) Pineappe Onions 2.

3 Eat more whoe grains. Whoe grains are a whoe ot heathier than refined grains. They have more fiber, more vitamins and mineras, and more protein. Whoe grains incude foods such as whoe wheat pasta, brown rice, oatmea, and even popcorn. Refined grains incude white rice, spaghetti, white bread, foods made with white four, and many breakfast cereas and snack foods. Haf of the servings of grains you eat each day shoud be whoe grains. If you want to know if your bread, cerea, pasta or other grain food is a whoe grain, ook for whoe wheat or some other whoe grain as the first ingredient on the ingredient abe. If you see muti-grain, seven grain, or made with whoe grains on the abe, chances are the food is not a whoe grain. Here are some simpe ways to add more whoe grains to your day: Choose a whoe grain cerea for breakfast. (Oatmea counts!) Make your sandwich with whoe wheat bread. Serve your burgers on whoe wheat buns. Try whoe wheat pasta and brown rice in pace of your usua white pasta and rice. Snack on popcorn. Choose corn or whoe wheat tortias. Enjoy a ight unch of cheese, whoe wheat crackers, and grapes. Experiment with other whoe grains, such as quinoa and bugur. Cut back on red and processed meats. Eating a ot of red meats (such as beef, pork, and amb) and processed meats (such as hot dogs, saami, and dei meats) over time can increase the risk of coon cancer. More often than not, go for ean chicken and turkey, fish, tofu, or beans in pace of red and processed meats. Here s a quick tip at the grocery store: ook for ground chicken or turkey breast. If the abe just says ground chicken or ground turkey, it has a the fat from the skin ground up with it which means a ot of extra fat and caories. Go easy on foods high in caories, fat, and sugar. Foods high in caories, fat, and or sugar can add up to extra pounds in no time. An easy way to figure out if a food is ow in fat is to ook at the nutrition facts abe. If a product is ow fat, there wi be three grams or ess of fat for every 100 caories (ess than 30% caories from fat). Keep in mind that the abes are isted per serving. So, for exampe, if there s 200 caories in one serving of a food, it can have up to 6 grams of fat and sti be caed ow in fat. Sugar can be found in two ways in your foods and beverages either naturay occurring or as added sugar. Fruits and dairy products have natura sugar in them; cereas, cakes, and cookies have added sugars. Unfortunatey, the nutrition facts abe does not differentiate between the types of sugar in a food or beverage; it just ists the tota amount of sugar, so you can t te exacty how much of the sugar in the product is natura and how much is added. It is especiay chaenging to know which sugars are added when the food is a dairy product (yogurt, for exampe, has some natura sugar in it, but many yogurts are packed with added sugar), or a cerea that has dried fruit in it (the dried fruit contributes natura sugar, but the cerea may aso be oaded with added sugar). Consider what the product is and aso ook at the ingredient ist on the abe. (Ingredients are isted in order by weight.) If some type of sugar is isted within the first few ingredients, you can be pretty sure the product is high in added sugars. Here are some of the ways you might see added sugar in the ingredient ist: Brown sugar Honey Corn sweetener Mat syrup Corn syrup Moasses Dextrose Raw sugar Fructose Sucrose Fruit juice concentrates Sugar Gucose Syrup High fructose corn syrup To find out how many teaspoons of sugar there are in your food and drinks, divide the grams of sugar per serving by four. 3.

4 COLLEGES AGAINST CANCER AND COLLEGIATE MISSION TOOLKIT If you drink acohoic beverages, imit your consumption. Reguar consumption of acoho is associated with a variety of different cancers, incuding breast, ora and esophagea, and iver. Maes shoud imit acoho consumption to no more than two drinks per day, femaes to no more than one. In addition to increasing cancer risk, acoho provides a ot of caories but itte nutrition to your diet. Eating We Whie Eating Out Foow these tips to hep you eat we whie you eat out, whether you re at a pizza pace, a fast food joint, or a sit-down restaurant. At the Pizza Pace Go for thin crust instead of the thicker crust and save a ot of caories. Skip the stuffed crust, too. Go for vegetabes as a topping instead of meat. If you are a meat over, go for chicken or ham instead of pepperoni and sausage. Skip the dipping sauce. Eat ess pizza by having a saad too. At a Fast Food Restaurant Skip choices abeed supersize, monster, big, and doube. Hod the specia sauces, mayonnaise, cheese, and bacon. Be saad-savvy. Choose ow caorie, coorfu vegetabes, but imit how much of the high-caorie toppings and dressing you eat. Have fruit for dessert. Break out of the burger habit, and enjoy a baked potato instead. Ask for butter and sour cream on the side, and use just a itte. Go for the gried chicken. Skip the breaded and fried version. Ditto for any fish sandwiches. Order mik or water instead of soda (or at east go for diet soda). Skip the mikshake. There s not much mik, but penty of sugar, fat, and caories. Ask for a copy of the restaurant s nutrition information. At a Sit Down Restaurant Don t go when you are especiay hungry. Pass on the bread basket. Request a to-go box as soon as your mea arrives, and pack away haf your mea to enjoy for unch the next day. Lunch portions tend to be smaer; ask for a unch portion even if it s dinner time. Have a saad and an appetizer as your mea. Watch out for saads that have ots of high caorie ingredients such as meat, cheese, eggs, and croutons. Ask for sauces, gravies, dressings, or other toppings on the side so you can contro the quantity you use. Spit an entrée with a friend. Seect fruit-based desserts. If you just have to have that chocoate mousse cake, order it with extra forks and share with your friends. If you drink acohoic beverages, imit how much you consume. Keep heathy foods and drinks on hand. Keeping heathy snacks on hand can hep you resist the urge to head to the vending machine for chips or candy when hunger strikes. Keep heathy options such as the ones beow in your dorm room or apartment, and pack some good-for-you snacks in your backpack when you eave for the day. Remember, too, to stay we-hydrated throughout the day. Carry a water botte with you! If you have a refrigerator, stock up on: Fresh fruits and vegetabes 100% juice Fat free dressings for saads or for dipping vegetabes Low fat or fat free yogurt (Watch out for added sugars.) String cheese Hummus Skim mik Or, keep these on hand aong with other heathy favorites: Dried fruit Whoe grain cereas Rice cakes Nuts Trai mix Popcorn (If you get microwave popcorn, choose one ow in fat.) Peanut butter Packages of tuna fish or samon Whoe grain crackers and pita bread 4.

5 Activity Ideas for Your Campus! Cafeteria Inventory Take an inventory of the food in the cafeteria. How many whoe grains are there compared to processed grains? Are fresh fruits and vegetabes avaiabe? If your cafeteria doesn t measure up, start an advocacy effort to change the options to heathier ones. Guess the Caories Game Surprise and educate your feow students at Coeges Against Cancer or Reay meetings by dispaying a variety of foods and drinks and asking them to guess the caories in them. (You may want to incude items such as a 20-ounce botte of soda, a sice of deep dish pizza, a cheeseburger and fries, etc.) Care Package Sae Send a etter or emai to parents inviting them to make a donation to purchase a heathy, stress reieving snack package to send to their student around exam time. Restaurant Round-Up Ask oca restaurants to sponsor a mea that foows the American Cancer Society s guideines for heathy eating. Heathy Study Break Have a Snacks and Facts study break where you offer heathy food and nutrition information. Locay Grown Produce Market Contact a oca farmers market and see if they wi set up a stand at your schoo one afternoon so that students can buy a wide variety of fresh-picked fruits and vegetabes. Smoothie Booth Offer smoothies in exchange for a donation and provide nutrition information on the ingredients in the smoothie.