5 Tips for Celebrating a World of Flavors

Lacey Anderson, MS, RD, LDN
Health Educator

March is National Nutrition Month! During National Nutrition Month, everyone is invited to learn more about healthy choices and developing positive habits through nutrition. This year we are celebrating a world of flavors by eating nutritious foods from different cuisines.

Use these 5 tips to celebrate a world of flavors with your family.

1. Bring the world to your table. Plan new cuisines into your weekly meal pattern or have an “around the world” week with your family and taste a different cuisine each night. Whether it is trying one new food from another culture or making a whole meal, adding different foods to meals and snacks offers a taste of various cuisines and creates opportunities to learn about and appreciate other cultures.

Need some inspiration for meal ideas? Check out these helpful resources below from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics:

2. Discover new flavors with herbs and spices. Cooking with different herbs and spices is essential to adding flavor from around the world. Different cuisines use different herbs and spices that are unique to the geographical origins of the dishes. Herbs and spices also add cultural significance to many dishes. Adding different spices from around the world to your dish helps you explore flavors from different cultures and is one of the simplest ways to taste something new. Need some inspiration for adding new flavors? Check out this link for 25 Spice Mixes from Around the World.

Spices and herbs on table. Food and cuisine ingredients.

3. Take a trip to a cultural or international foods store. Need to get some ideas for trying new cuisines? Spend the afternoon exploring cultural food stores and markets that are available to you. These markets have special items from different nations that you may not otherwise find at a conventional grocery store. Pick out a single item to incorporate into a meal, or gather all of the ingredients for a completely new dish.

4. Try new fruits and vegetables. Take the opportunity to taste new fruits and vegetables from around the world that you may not normally eat. Try adding a cactus salad, crunchy jicama, Polish beets, or fruit chutney to the menu one night. Trying fruits and vegetables from around the world not only opens your family’s mind to different cuisines, but allows for more possibilities of fruits and vegetables to enjoy throughout the whole year

5. Have the whole family involved in preparing meals together. Getting kids involved in the kitchen helps to expose them to new foods and ingredients. Choosing meals from new cuisines includes trying new foods together. Get input from the rest of the family to see what new foods or dishes they may want to try, then take some time to prepare it together. Check out this resource for tips on how to introduce your child to new cuisines from around the world. Using Food to Introduce Children to New Cultures.

Cheerful family spending good time together while cooking in kitchen


Featured Poe Programs: CookWELL Kitchen Programs

Participants: 3rd – 12th grades, adults

The CookWELL Kitchen is a unique teaching space designed to encourage healthy food choices, preferences, and attitudes by teaching skills to create nutritious and delicious dishes. Programs may be presented in-person at the Poe Center or live online.

Plan a Program Today


Featured Resource: #PoeFit – Search Different Cuisines

#PoeFit, the Poe Center’s weekly nutrition Tweet series, often features recipes from a variety of different cultures and nationalities. Search our collection of tweets for various recipes, insights, and resources to incorporate more diversity in your meals. Enter the words “recipe” or “dish” to generate a list of our most recent related Tweets.