Analyzing Your Favorite American Meal: Level 3 PowerPoint Speech

For this speech you will be describing your favorite American meal, discussing its nutritional value and analyzing whether it is healthy or not. 

Your speech needs to be at least FOUR to SIX minutes and use powerpoint as a visual aid and organization tool.

We will be giving our presentations on Monday, May 14. So be ready!!!

Word doc version
Vince's PowerPoint
Nikkie's PowerPoint
Power Point Principles (Good PowerPoint PPT)

Content  

1)      Describe your favorite American dish.

• America is the land of immigrants, and much of our cuisine comes from all over the world. So while we ask for “American” dishes, this is a broad category. Think about choosing a dish you never had back home and were introduced to when you got to The States.
• This includes the main course, any side dishes and drinks.
• Why do you like this meal? How did you learn about it? Perhaps include a brief anecdote (story) explaining your first experience with this dish.

2)      Explain its nutritional content

• We will use MyPlate.gov to determine its nutritional content. For example, how many calories does it have? What is its grains, fruit, vegetables, dairy and protein breakdown.  You can get much of this information by going to http://www.choosemyplate.gov/supertracker-tools/daily-food-plans.html   (see attached example for more details).

3)      Analyze the nutrition

• The basic analysis is this:  Is this healthy meal? However, answering this question isn’t simple. We need to consider who it is (weight, age and how much someone exercises).  We also need to consider this in a context (is this the only meal?). So when providing this analysis consider how much someone would have to exercise and what else they could eat to make this healthy or not.
• Using the Superfood Tracker on My Plate can help you get much of this information: https://www.choosemyplate.gov/supertracker/foodtracker.aspx

 Organization

This is a formal presentation, and with all formal presentations you will need an introduction, body and conclusion.

• INTRO: Briefly outline what you will discuss in your nutritional analysis. Much of the introduction will likely be describing the dish (what we have listed in part 1)
• BODY: This should describe and analyze your meal (parts 2 and 3). Be sure to use appropriate transitions and “big picture language” to connect ideas and show listeners what’s important.
• Conclusion: review your main points and make an ending suggestion statement. Meaning, if people eat this meal, how can they do so healthily.

Powerpoint 

PowerPoint is a great tool for helping you organize your ideas for yourself and readers. Below are some basic guidelines for the PowerPoint itself to make sure it is useful for readers.

Guidelines

• Make sure it uses good contrast. White on a black background is an example of good contrast. Red text on a blue background is not.
• Use bullet points with short phrasing. Do not WRITE your points and ideas. Use fragments and brief sentences (typically no more than 7 words)
• Use consistent and basic animation. Don’t “fly in” and then “wipe” and “dissolve.” In fact, for your outline, you don’t need to “animate” at all.

Requirements

• Outlines major points at the beginning.
• Uses heading for each major point.
• Bullets for supporting ideas and details (no transitional phrasing)
• At least one visual per major section – i.e. meal description and analysis

Final Note: This is an opportunity to learn something about your health and eating. So while it is a very rigorous assignment, have fun with it. … We will be giving presentations Monday, May 14.