Nutrition Education

Fiton offers 10 tips on ways to add variety to your diet. By visiting 10 Expert Ways to Add Variety to Healthy Meals - FitOn (fitonapp.com) you will find tips on how adding spices and different colors can help add variety to your diet. It also gives tips on how to try new things by adding new ingredients or switching an ingredient in your favorite dishes. Additionally, trying new foods once a week. Also by visiting MyPlate Plan | MyPlate you will find tools to customize your meal plan based on your specific food group targets and calorie needs.

Eating habits are often influenced by the accessibility and affordability of food retailers. Food retailers vary economically from one community to another. Nutrition education and efforts to help people improve their health through eating habits may be of greater need in some communities/cultures. Lack of transportation and the distance of supermarkets are two barriers that low-income communities are faced with when it comes to access to healthy affordable food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers a local food directory at USDA Local Food Directories (usdalocalfoodportal.com) . Here you can search by town for farmers markets, on-farm markets, food hubs, community supported agriculture (CSA), and agritourism. It provides information on how far each location is, operation season, products available, and if direct delivery to consumers’ home is an option.

Food choices can be influenced by both social and psychological factors. Social factors refer to the influence other people have on another individual’s food choices and can be both direct and conscious or indirect and unconscious. Psychological factors refer to the relationship between our brain and our food choices that impact eating habits.

The Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School provides a great tool for consumers to understand certain aspects of eating healthily and having a better relationship with food in their Healthy Living Guide: A Digest on Healthy Eating and Living which can be accessed here Healthy Living Guide 2023-2024 https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/HLGuide2023-2024.pdf. This guide provides QR codes the consumer can scan to learn more on specific topics. It also provides recipes and tips for planning meals. It includes strategies for healthy eating on a budget and how to practice mindful eating. Additionally, it covers information on caffeine, staying active, stress and health, sleep, and provides reviews of common diets.

Food labels provide nutritional facts and a list of ingredients. They play a key role in consumer ability to make informed decisions about what types of foods they are consuming. Food labels are also important for food safety reasons and are particularly important to consumers who have food sensitivities and allergies.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration provides an up to date list of any food products that have been recalled on their website at https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts. It also provides a search tool to look up foods by product type and whether they recall has been terminated. Many of the products include recalls due to undeclared ingredients which were not listed on the food label.

Dietary trends are becoming increasingly popular and of great interest but what woks for one may not work for all. There are many resources that help create an awareness of eating habits and can be helpful to keep you on track. It is important to consider what trends can be helpful versus what trends can be harmful. Figuring out what is best for you can require some trial and error.

UT Southwestern Medical Center offers some guidance on 9 of the most common diet trends and whether to try them or to skip them.

https://utswmed.org/medblog/diets-best-and-worst/

Organic crops are free of synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge as fertilizer, synthetic pesticides, radiation, genetic technology, and antibiotics. Organic animal farming practices include healthy living conditions, 30% of the nutritional needs come from pasture feeding, organic food for the animals, and vaccinations to protect from disease. Understanding the organic label is important when making decisions regarding the foods you choose to purchase and consume. The 100% organic label is used on foods that are USDA certified organic if all its ingredients apart from salt and water are organic. The organic label indicates that 95% of the ingredients are organic apart from salt and water and some ingredients which must come from a list that is USDA approved. Made with organic indicates food items that are not USDA sealed and contain 70% organic ingredients which must be listed on the label indicating organic. A label reading “organic ingredients” contains less than 70% of organic ingredients which also does not carry the organic label or USDA seal.

By visiting the USDA website at https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/national-list-allowed-and-prohibited-substances providers and consumers can find information about allowed and prohibited substances in organic products. It provides a link to the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations at https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I/subchapter-M/part-205/subpart-G which provides a long list of both synthetic and non-synthetic substances that are both allowed and prohibited in organic products. Additionally, the USDA website provides market news which offers information on pricing, sales, volume, and other information regarding products that have been grown by the USDA ‘s National Organic Program Standards.

Genetically engineered food, also known as genetically modified organism (GMO) is when one or more changes are made to the genome of an organism. This consists of high-tech genetic engineering in an attempt to alter characteristics of an organism. GMO food can be of both benefit and risk to consumers.

Visit the Worl Health Organization’s (WHOs) website at https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/food-genetically-modified for a list of questions and answers regarding GOM foods. This website covers in detail what GMO foods are, why they are produced, and how they are regulated. It also covers the many benefits and risks associated with GMOs and how they affect the consumer and the environment.