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The Eatwell Guide shows a balanced diet: just over a third of what we eat should be fruit and vegetables and just over a third starchy foods, with smaller amounts of protein foods, dairy and a little oil. The balance matters over a day or a week, not at every meal.

Carbohydrates include sugars and starches. Sugars such as fruit sugar and table sugar are simple carbohydrates; starches are long chains of simple ones. Starchy foods are a main source of energy.

Proteins are made of building blocks called amino acids. The body needs protein to grow and to maintain and replace tissues: muscle and skin are built of protein. Beans, pulses, fish, eggs and meat are protein foods.

Experiment: Sugar detectives: comparing food labels

1. On each packet, find the nutrition table and the line 'of which sugars'.
2. Write down the sugars per 100 g (not per portion) for each product in the table.
3. Colour each result: green if it is 5 g or less, red if it is more than 22.5 g, amber if it is in between.
4. Put the products in order from lowest to highest sugar per 100 g.
5. Discuss: why is it fairer to compare per 100 g than per portion?
6. Look for the front-of-pack traffic lights, if the packet has them. Do they agree with your colours?

Product	Sugars per 100 g (g)	Colour (green / amber / red)

Questions

1. Name the five parts of the Eatwell Guide and give one food for each.

2. Write down your three products from the sugar detective test, from lowest to highest sugar per 100 g.

3. Explain why it is fairer to compare sugars per 100 g than per portion.

4. Give one job of protein and one job of fibre in the body.

Sources for every fact on this sheet: echoesof.science/school/healthy-eating/sources/

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