This game aims to encourage children to eat fruits and vegetables. It involves cards with images of fruits/vegetables and their nutrient contents. Players take turns choosing a nutrient and comparing values on their top cards to win those cards and the real fruit/vegetable. The player who collects all cards and foods wins. The objective is to make learning about nutrition fun and motivate children to eat more healthy options.

1. HEALTH TRUMP
Jigna Merchant, MS
Crash Course in Creativity

2. OBJECTIVE
I am a nutrition scientist by training. Getting children to
eat adequate quantities and a variety of fruits and
vegetables is a challenge faced by all healthcare
professionals. My objective is to encourage children to
eat fruits and vegetables by including them in this game.

3. HOUSEHOLD ITEMS
 Fruits, vegetables, dried fruits, cards can be designed on
the computer like I have designed the sample ones here,
or old business cards can be used and coloured and
painted to make them into trump cards, or cards can be
designed on A4 sheets of paper and stuck on thick
cardboard paper to make them into cards (yes- I think
computer is a household item since it is present in
primarily all households, and any homes with kids would
have all the possible items suggested here for designing
the cards)

4. PLAYERS, CARDS AND FOOD
 This is a game for two-four players in which the object is
to win all the cards.
 The pack is of 16 cards.
 Each card depicts one example of a fruit/vegetable and
list the levels of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin B 12, Iron,
Folic Acid, present in that fruit.
 The 16 Fruit cards that make up the pack are: Apple,
Banana, orange, sweet lime, tomato, carrot, strawberry,
grapes, kiwifruit, pineapple, pears, peaches, cherries,
blueberries, almonds, walnuts.
 One each of the fruit/vegetables and 5-6 almonds and
walnuts packed in a Ziploc bag

5. DEAL AND PLAY
 All the cards are dealt as equally as possible to the players
and the players hold their cards in a face up stack so that they
can see their first card only and the other players cannot see
their card.
 All the fruits/vegetables and dried fruits are placed in the
centre of the table in a big basket.
 The starting player - normally the player to the left of the
dealer - chooses one nutrient - for example Vitamin A.
 Everyone then reads out the value of that nutrient on their
first fruit/vegetable/dried fruit card and whoever has the
highest value wins all the first cards, collects them and places
them at the bottom of their stack.

6. DEAL AND PLAY
 The person that gets all the cards also gets the actual
fruit/vegetables/dried fruits of the cards he has won from the
basket.
 The person that has won the cards and the
fruits/vegetables/dried fruit chooses to read a nutrient from
their next card and again whoever has the highest value of
this nutrient as their top card wins. He also wins the fruit and
if the fruit is already with some other player from an earlier
round, the looser also looses the fruit along-with his card.
 This continues for as many turns as necessary, and players
drop out of the game as they run out of cards.
 Whoever eventually manages to collect all the cards and the
food wins the game. The players then conclude the game by
eating all the foods if the winner is willing to share!

7. IN CASE OF A “TIE”
 Since this game is being played with nutrient values chances
of a tie are very low. However if a tie does happen all players
place their top card in the middle of the table and the turn
remains with same the player who chose that nutrient. The
next player who wins cards also collects the pile of cards from
the middle of the table.
 In some cards, the nutrient values for certain nutrients may
be “Not detectable”. If any player has “Not detectable” for a
chosen nutrient, the effect is the same as if there was a tie.
All players place their top card in the middle and the same
player chooses again.

8. SAMPLE OF THE “ HEALTH TRUMP” CARDS
Note: The levels of nutrients shown in the above two sample cards are hypothetical values
inserted only for the purposes of illustration. For the design of the real cards values of
nutrients will be listed per serving of the fruit and values for levels of the nutrients will be
taken from http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/.