This week marks the second anniversary of USDA’s MyPlate, the food icon that reminds us to build a healthy plate with vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean proteins, and fat-free or low-fat dairy at every meal. MyPlate and its partners have been celebrating My Plate’s Birthday all week and today, First Lady Michelle Obama joined in the fun, pulling together some of her favorite MyPlate-inspired dishes to be featured on the My Plate Recipes Pinterest board. First Lady Michelle Obama choose dishes that are tasty, easy to make, and nutritious. Dishes include dinner entrees to salads to refreshing desserts. Check them out and tell us what you like best with the hashtag #MyPlateBirthday.

This morning on the National Mall, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, and Let’s Move! Executive Director Sam Kass joined executives and chefs of major concessioners to announce that visitors will have additional choices for purchasing healthy, nutritious food at national parks across the country. “Our national parks are renowned around the world for their breathtaking landscapes and important cultural and historical sites,” Secretary Jewell said. “Today, as part of the administration’s efforts to promote healthier choices, we are adding yet another reason to visit our national parks and increasing the number of healthy food options available to visitors at parks from coast to coast.” Through the Healthy Parks, Healthy People initiative, Director Jarvis issued healthy food standards and sustainable food guidelines that will increase the number of menu items available at more than 250 food and beverage operations in national parks.

Now that summer is almost here, it is the perfect time to get outside and celebrate our country's magnificent landscapes, waterways and historical sites. In cities and towns across the country, public lands and waters provide unparalleled opportunities for affordable, family-friendly recreation.  From rugged trails to urban rivers, and from sandy coastlines to rolling battlefields, these places are meant to be explored and enjoyed by all! 

Today, a group of student helpers joined First Lady Michelle Obama for the summer White House kitchen garden harvest. For this harvest, the First Lady invited children from two New Jersey communities that were affected by Hurricane Sandy and invited back all the children who helped plant the garden in April so they could see the fruits of their labors. First Lady Michelle Obama and the students got their hands dirty picking produce from the garden.

Today at the White House, we celebrated a group of educational publishers on their development of voluntary guidance to incorporate health information into textbooks and other learning materials. The First Lady applauded the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), and the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) for voluntarily coming together to support the health of our nation’s children by incorporating healthy food and physical activity into all subject areas.

Growing up in the Philippines, my mother was my main source of inspiration for cooking. I came from a family of eleven kids, and as a child, I would constantly volunteer to help her in the kitchen. My mother would prepare such amazing authentic Filipino food, and cooking for her was almost second nature. She didn’t think about it, she just knew what ingredients to use, how much of each to use, and how to combine their flavors in ways that would satisfy everyone in the family.