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  • This activity is designed to encourage students to think about foods and group them according to their own categorisation system. Students then do online research regarding food energy and healthy food recommendations and revise their grouping systems in light of the new knowledge.

    Rights: 2006 Plant & Food Research

    Vegetable selection

    This selection of healthy vegetables includes peppers, tomatoes and broccoli.

    In this activity, students explore ways of grouping foods using a silent card shuffle.

    By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

    • experience devising and revising their own food categorisation systems
    • consider the relationship between food and energy.

    Download the Word file (see link below) for:

    • background information for teachers
    • teacher instructions.

    Related content

    Guiding food choices explores the concept of balancing the foods we eat with the energy requirements of our lifestyles

    The Australian and New Zealand governments are conducting a review of the Health Star Rating system for food. This article looks at the system’s drawbacks and ways to move forward.

    As an extension students could use learn more about Energy requirements and food groups.

    Useful links

    In this activity, students are asked to do online research using these websites:

    Eat for health has a daily energy requirements calculator.

    HealthEd provides public health resources from New Zealand health organisations:

    • HealthEd – healthy eating for young people
    • HealthEd – eating for healthy children aged 2 to 12

    BBC Energy and nutrients (part of a larger suite of nutrition resources).

      Published 9 August 2008, Updated 3 February 2025 Referencing Hub articles
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