Here is a quick and easy way to track what you (or other family members) are eating. Using the colors of the five food groups, the Food Jar is filled with food sticks labeled: Fruits, Vegetables, Grains, Protein, Dairy, and Sugar. Whenever you eat, grab a stick that represents the food. At the end of the day you’ll see how many veggies you actually ate….or how much sugar you consumed.

The other way to use the sticks is to pull out your daily food goals for the day, and as you eat, place the sticks back in the Food Jar. You’ll see if you need to grab an apple to use up that last fruit stick.

My son and I got the idea for the Food Jar from the easy-to-use Chore Jar created by Kirsten Fuller over at Embellish. (I asked her if it was okay for him to springboard off her idea and she thought it was a great idea!)

He is learning all things Adobe, so I challenged him to take the chore sticks idea and apply it to food.

The daily recommended amounts on the food jar are listed child through adult. So, for example, Fruits listed at 1 1/2 – 2 c would be 1 1/2 c for a child, 2 c for an adult.

For more specific information on the recommended amounts, see Choose My Plate. (Did you know the food pyramid has been replaced by the choose-my-plate image?) You can also customize your food plan based on your age, height, etc.here: Daily Food Plan

No amounts are listed on the food sticks. You’ll have to decide for yourself what the value of one stick is. For example, do you wait to take a stick until you’ve eaten a full serving of that item? What if you only eat one tiny little mini chocolate bar. Does that count as a full sugar stick?

Questions like that will have to be worked out with your own conscience! I will not be checking up on you.

Basically, I see this as a quick way to see if I’m eating as healthy as I think I am. Or to remind the kids that they have to figure out some way to pull two green sticks out of the jar by the end of the day.

The Food Jar also leads to interesting meal-time discussions as you have to figure out the categories of what you are eating. Then we can talk about what nutrients are important in each category. It’s all about becoming more aware of what we are eating.

Here are your links:

Food Jar p1 (with jar labels)

Food Jar p2 (sticks only)

We found that the plain wood sticks are slightly larger than the colored ones. So if you are using the colored sticks you don’t have to stay close to the lines when you are cutting.

Enjoy your healthy eating and spread the word about the Food Jar. (We made these lovely pinable images just for you.)