Three Day Food Diary

Introduction
Over the past three days, I have completed a three-day food diary. This involved recording all the exercise I did and everything I ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner and multiple snacks throughout the three days. I found this experience quite interesting as it made me more aware of what I eating and how this relates to the guidelines for my age category (14-18). This report will be able to tell me what improvements I need to make to have a balanced diet and also the reflect on my diet currently. I will go through each food group including grain (cereal foods), vegetables, fruit, dairy, lean meats, poultry, eggs, etc and discretionary choices and reflect on the amount of serves I consumed for that for group.

Grain (Cereal Foods)
Fruit is very beneficial to our body as it has a good source of vitamins and minerals which is necessary for the functioning of our body, potassium which improves the functioning of all cells, tissue and organs in our body systems, fibre which keeps us regular and prevents constipation, vitamin C which helps strengthen and form our body and bones and folate which is needed to create our DNA. It also prevents having a stroke, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Fruit helps us to keep a balance diet and gives us a good supply of natural sugars which is why we only 2 serves is recommended. According to my food diary, the fruits I consumed in the three days was tomatoes, apples, blueberries, watermelon, raspberries and a banana. On the first day I had three and a half of serves of fruit, on the second day three serves and on the final day, two serves. On the first two days I went over the recommended intakes (2 serves), but on the third day matched it correctly. This is because on school days I have fruit in my lunchbox, for an afternoon snack and in my salad dinner, whereas on the weekend I only have it as a snack and at dinner. This food diary has helped me to realise that I need to cut back on my amount of fruit as too much fruit is also not heathy. Consuming too many serves of fruit can cause dental decay due to the mont of sugar in the
Dairy products are beneficial to our bodies especially for people still growing as they keep your bones and teeth strong and your nails and hair healthy. On a three day basis I usually consume dairy products like milk for breakfast, cheese slices for lunch and yoghurt as a snack. On the first day and second day I only had one serve of dairy and on the third day two serves. As the recommended intake is three and a half serves, my intake for dairy is extremely low because over the three days I am meant to having ten and a half serves but I am only have 4 serves which means I am eating less than 40% of what is required. Not having enough dairy foods and calcium in your diet is bad as your bones aren’t strengthening as they should be, your hair and nails may become brittle and if these habits continue over the years especially after menopause your bones will become very frail and break easily. One thing I could do to improve this is after school or throughout the day have a large glass of milk or a cup of