Healthy recipe card handmade

If you want to make easy-to-use and durable healthy recipe cards, you must focus on three core principles: "The content is suitable for the user group, the materials are durable and easy to store, and the design information level is clear." The whole process takes no more than 40 minutes for ordinary people, and the minimum cost per serving is less than 2 yuan. Whether it is used as a sticker on the home refrigerator, as a reminder for people with special needs, or as a promotional material for community health science activities, it is completely sufficient.

I've stepped into a stupid trap before. When I made a high-uric acid recipe for my mother for the first time, I found a template with floral patterns. I printed it out on ordinary A4 colored paper and put it on the refrigerator. On the third day, the bone soup overflowed and splashed on half of the sheet. Within a week, the edges were curled and torn to the point where it was impossible to read. Later, I changed to 230g coated paper and then re-molded it. After using it for more than half a year, if it is splashed with oil or dust, it can be wiped clean with a wet rag. The wear resistance is at least 3 times higher than that of ordinary cardboard. If you are making batches of community science popularization materials, just print on one side of 157g coated paper and use a corner rounder to round the four corners to prevent scratches. The cost is only 1.2 yuan per piece, which is very cost-effective.

There are actually two completely different ways of thinking about making recipe cards now. I can’t say who is right or wrong, it all depends on the usage scenario. Most of the practical ones are for the elderly and patients with chronic diseases. There are no unnecessary decorations at all. The most conspicuous places are all key reminders. For example, the ones for diabetics use the largest red fonts to say "no more than 2 taels per meal, and try not to touch porridge." The week's menu listed below has carbohydrates and calories directly after each dish. The characters are so big that you can read them clearly even with reading glasses half a meter away. The aesthetic style is basically made by young girls for themselves. They like to add hand-drawn tomatoes and broccoli patterns, leave a note area to check the intake of the day, and even add half a column of the week's exercise plan, making the recipe card a part of the life record. My best friend drew it when she was losing weight last year. There were more Stella Dew stickers than words. She said that every time she wanted to eat a late-night snack, she looked up and the probability of keeping her mouth shut was much higher.

There are actually different views in the industry on whether the content of recipes should be accurate to the gram. Most clinical nutritionists support that the more detailed the better, especially for people who need to strictly control their intake. The purine, carbohydrate, and sodium content of each dish is clearly marked, which can minimize execution errors. ； However, practitioners in the field of public health recommend fuzzy body reference methods, such as "one fist of staple food, two palms of green leafy vegetables, and one palm of protein." There is no need to remember numbers or buy a food scale. The threshold for getting started is low, and the probability that ordinary people can insist on using it is higher. I made nearly 20 different recipe cards one after another, and I felt there was no need to worry. For young people who know how to use a scale and are receptive, I would mark the grams, and for the elderly who are afraid of trouble, I would use the body measurement method. Ease of use is always the first priority.

Let’s talk about a small detail that is easily overlooked. Don’t use fancy gradient backgrounds. There must be a big difference between the color of the text and the background color. I tried a light green background with dark green characters before. My mother said her eyes hurt after looking at it for three minutes. Later, it was changed to an off-white background with black characters, and the key points were marked in red. She could get the key points at a glance before cooking. Don’t make the size too big. A5 is just the right size. It doesn’t take up space in the refrigerator and is convenient to carry in your bag to work. If you want to make it a popular science prop for kindergarten children, make it a larger A4. The softer cardboard allows them to fold and play.

Last week, I took pictures of the recipe card I made for my mother and sent it to the owner group. Many neighbors asked me for templates, and an aunt made a copy for her pregnant daughter-in-law. She said that she used to be afraid that the dishes she cooked would not meet the nutritionist's requirements, but now she puts them on the side of the refrigerator, so she can tell them at a glance before cooking. Oh, yes, if you are too lazy to design it yourself, there are many free public health templates on the Internet. You can just change the content and use it without having to start from scratch. After all, this thing is essentially a reminder tool to eat. It can help you implement healthy eating habits and is more effective than any exquisite design.