July 2
marked the official start of this year’s Nutrition Month celebration guided by
the theme, “Pagkain ng gulay ugaliin, araw-araw itong ihain” which kicks off
the nationwide celebration with the importance of vegetables.
The
theme call the nation’s attention and action on a particular issue and aims to
encourage every Filipino to eat more vegetables, 3 servings or more per day, to
add more vitamins and minerals in the diet as well as to prevent
non-communicable diseases. Its objectives are to increase vegetable consumption
as part of a healthy diet, to promote vegetable gardening as a source of
additional food and income; and to increase demand for these. Today’s Nutrition
Month focuses on vegetables based for several reasons, including the Filipinos
that are eating less and less vegetables.
As
vegetables have less calories, adding them to the diet can help people to
reduce weight or maintain normal body weight. A serving of vegetable is equal
to a cup of raw leafy vegetables or one half cup of raw leafy or cooked
non-leafy vegetables. We can prepare these by boiling, steaming, stir-frying,
broiling ang even micro-waving. Through this, we can get the special benefits
taken from eating vegetables.
Increasing
the consumption of vegetables of Filipinos can be done by increasing the supply
of vegetables and by promoting its advantages. Also, by making vegetable dishes
accessible to consumers.
Since
we are celebrating Nutrition Month, there are also some activities to be held
by the different schools like conducting vegetable cooking contests; parades;
poster making contests or even lectures and seminars.
