Nutrition Day

Nutrition Day is a practical assessment, not a celebration. Students are given a clinical condition, and have to produce a diet that would actually be prescribed for it: the calorie chart, the food quantities, the menu, and the cooked meal itself.

Groups worked across the day on antihypertensive and diabetic diets, building calorie charts by food item and quantity, writing out the day's menu, then preparing and plating the meal in the nutrition laboratory.

The point of the exercise is that a nurse who cannot explain a diet to a patient's family in practical terms — what to cook, how much, and why — has not really learned it. Working out that a hypertensive patient's rice portion is 100 g at 191 kcal, and then cooking it, makes the number mean something.

Diet charts, menus and prepared dishes were assessed by faculty on nutritional accuracy, hygiene and presentation. Photographs and clips from the day are below.