Culinary Arts Lesson Plan for Nutrition

Teaching about nutrition is an inevitable part of teaching culinary arts to high school or middle school students. Nutrition is increasingly emphasized in the culinary world, a positive change in many ways!

In fact, the health and wellness foods market was valued at approximately $858.8 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 9.4% from 2024 to 2030, highlighting the increasing consumer demand for healthier food options. Additionally, the National Restaurant Association’s 2022 forecast also showed trends emphasizing plant-based dishes, sustainable sourcing, and ingredient transparency.

Let’s take a look at some nutrition activities that can be used in your culinary arts curriculum.

Nutrition in Cooking and Menu Planning Lesson Plan Learning Objective:

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• • Identify standard nutrition terms to better meet their and others’ dietary needs. 
  • Identify the nutritional needs of people at various stages of life.

Here are the Downloadable Lesson Plan Elements for Nutrition in Culinary Arts:

• • Nutrition Bell Ringer Sample
  • Nutrition Bell Ringers Google Link
  • Nutrition Vocabulary BINGO
  • Life Stages Who Am I Activity
  • Answer Key Life Stage Who Am I

Materials Needed for Teaching Nutrition in Culinary Arts Lesson:

• Printed bell ringers or access to Google to assign the bell ringers to students.
• BINGO boards printed, we suggest using dry-erase sleeves and dry-erase markers to minimize the need to print many pages.
• Scissors to cut the definitions for the BINGO game to choose from.
• Internet connection and devices or computers for students to search the MyPlate website.

Procedure for Teaching Nutrition for Culinary Arts Lesson:

1. Have students answer the bell ringer(s) depending on how long you teach nutrition. Grade the bell ringers as a classwork grade.
2. Print students a blank BINGO board and have them fill in their squares with terms from the Nutrition Vocabulary Sheet included. To save on paper, you can project the terms for them to choose from. Have them use the dry-erase sleeves to slip their board into and write their terms so you can play multiple times.
3. Read the definitions of terms for students as they cross of the terms on their board until you have a winner. They may need their own definition sheets if they are unfamiliar with the terms.
4. Have students work independently or with a partner to complete the MyPlate Life Stages activity to better understand the dietary needs of different life stages. Go over the answers as a class or collect for a grade.

Understanding nutrition labels is essential for tailoring meals to different life stages. Check out our Nutrition Label Lesson Plan for an interactive way to teach this skill.