'Unbreakable': How to Use MyMenu Concierge To Achieve Strong Bones for Life
Hi! I’m Kelly, Healthy Dining’s Director of Member Success. I have a bachelor’s degree in food and nutrition from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Even with my degree, I have learned a lot with this Bone Health series. I have to say, when using MyMenu, you will not just learn, but really understand what it takes to consume enough of the right nutrients to prevent bone decline over time. And that's not easy to do! Luckily, that is what MyMenu Concierge does for you! Let me show you how it works.
1. First, you can use your CALIBRATE digital report to see your estimated Current and IDEAL intake for important bone health nutrients, like Calcium, Vit D, Vit K, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, and Protein.
2. Now you can click on any nutrient on your CALIBRATE personalized report to find a list of foods that are rich sources of each nutrient. So, for instance, I am not at my IDEAL level for Calcium, so I can click on the nutrient and see this list of sources. The list divides the sources into ‘Plant-Based’ and ‘Animal-Derived.’ It’s best, if you aren’t eating vegan, to consume foods from both lists.
3. Now is a good time to start an ever-growing nutrient-based grocery list. Start by adding foods that you like from these CALIBRATE lists, so you have them ready to add to recipes and quick meals. See this article too for a list of bone health food sources: Add these to your grocery list.
4. Now comes the accountability! I think you will find this fascinating and very helpful as you apply all you now know about bone health. Go to the TRACK feature on MyMenu and start tracking your food intake for the next 3-5 days. Be as accurate as possible with measures and amounts and brand names. Below is an example of my TRACK dashboard.
5. Here are my results from TRACK – the dashboard makes it easy to see how close I am to my IDEAL recommendations.
6. You can also click on a nutrient within TRACK to see precisely how much each food contributed to your total daily intake. You can see here that the cheese, yogurt, and cottage cheese included in my meals were the highest contributors to my calcium intake. I was also surprised that the water I drink is a source of calcium, too!
7. Who loves to dine out? MyMenu’s EAT feature shows you menu items high in healthful nutrients. Now that you have a list of foods rich in bone health nutrients, you can use EAT to find menu items with those ingredients. Here are a few of my favorite menu items that showcase bone health nutrients. You can easily snyc your EAT restaurant meal to TRACK by clicking the ‘Add to TRACK’ button.
Kelly helps unite Healthy Dining’s think tank of dietitians with our team of innovation “techies” (software and digital team). She is an integral part of Healthy Dining’s nutrition team, acting as a liaison to restaurants and eateries across the USA on the development and launch of the MyMenu Guest Platform for restaurants and MyMenu Concierge for consumers and health, fitness and travel companies. Kelly works one-on-one with restaurants to ensure their menu items and nutrition, allergen and validated terms (vegan, keto, etc.) are accurately presented on MyMenu. Kelly has her Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
