Lesson  - Foods Around the World Objectives Students will be able to identify healthy food items from the grain, fruit and vegetable groups. Students will be encouraged to try different foods in order to promote a variety of healthy food choices into their diet through the use of taste testing.   Materials Needed Food Guide Pyramid Other Food items: grains, vegetables, fruits (include ethnic choices) Recipe ideas to accompany food items for the children to bring home. Teaching Key Messages It's important to make healthy food choices everyday to keep the body healthy. A healthy diet means choosing healthy foods, but also getting a variety of those foods in your diet everyday. Children can play a key role in getting a healthful diet by helping their parents select items that they would like to eat, and incorporating new and healthy foods into their diet. It is important to incorporate healthy foods into the diet and to try new healthy foods you think you don’t like.   Activities 1. Introducing the Food Guide Pyramid Show a picture of the Food Guide Pyramid to students. Questions: 1. What is the Food Guide Pyramid? 2. Why do you think it has a triangle shape? 3. What are the different food groups? 4. What are some of the foods that you usually eat from the grain, fruit and      vegetable groups? 2. Tasting Time Students will be allowed to taste test some food items. Food items should be representative of the food groups of the pyramid (Vegetables, Fruits, Grains) and should be representative of a variety of ethnic cuisines (ex. Italian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, German, Polish, Mexican, and African American). Have students try to identify each item. Have students taste each item and evaluate them based on appearance, texture, color, taste, etc. Questions: 1. What foods do you like? 2. How does each item fit into the Food Guide Pyramid? 3. Do you think you would eat these foods at home?