Family Nutrition: Zoom Out!

Last Saturday, we had our first Illinois Farm Families® tour, we met at the Ultra Foods grocery store in Wheaton, Illinois. The goal of the day was to learn more about food labeling and maybe learn how to shop a little better. For me, the most interesting part of the day was the workshop given by Jodie Shield, MEd, RDN, LDN, and President and Founder of Healthy Eating for Families, Inc.

Jodie is a Registered Dietician Nutritionist (RDN). She has been practicing for almost three decades and has a very long list of credentials, but the most interesting to me was that she writes for the “Good Eating” section of the Chicago Tribune and is the person who writes the recipes that I like to cut out of the paper. How cool is that? To start, she explained what RDN means. ‘First of all,’ to paraphrase, she said, ‘we are all nutritionists. We make decisions and plan our meals for the health of our families and that is what a nutritionist does.’ However, she is a “registered dietician,” which means she has had four years of an undergraduate degree, a year of internship, and she also has a Master’s Degree.  She said a registered dietician is a scientist, but, she said, ‘I teach people how to eat healthy foods. Not nutrients. Foods. Nutrients don’t taste good. Food tastes good. Taste drives why we choose the foods that we buy and eat.’

After listening to Jodie, I came away thinking that a family nutrition plan is a pretty important thing and every family should have one in the same way that we have a financial plan; and we should probably meet with a registered dietician to revise that plan at major points of change in our lives! The reality is that most of us probably won’t hire an RDN unless someone in our family has a particular nutritional need that has to be addressed. She shared with us a website called “MyPlate.gov.” I checked it out and it looks like a great resource that could help me make my own family nutrition plan and maybe make some healthy changes in the way we eat. Jodie also has a blog where she posts a lot of healthy recipes that sound tasty (healthyeatingforfamilies.com).

Jodie has a way of talking about food to feed our families that makes it all seem very simple, demystified, and straightforward. What I took away from her was this. Instead of zooming in our lens and focusing our time and attention on the buzzwords of the day (such as natural, organic (pesticides), GMO, Hormone Free, and grass-fed, to name a few), we should zoom out and re-frame our view to look at what matters so much more, the bigger picture, which is getting more fruits and vegetables onto our kids plates and cutting back on the sugar and saturated fat we put in their little bodies. Jodie’s professional focus is on childhood obesity and, in her talk with us, she reminded us that one in three children today, are (not “may,” but definitively “are”) going to develop type 2 diabetes. The number of young children who are overweight and obese is remarkably high.

When we zoom in on these buzzwords, we start to wonder (a little) and (maybe even) worry. Is some of our food is even safe to eat? What will happen if I buy the milk that doesn’t say Hormone Free? Should I buy beef with a label that reads grass-fed or, more importantly, can I afford not to? And, I really should be feeding my kids fresh locally-grown organic fruits and vegetables every day, right? But, it’s been 20 degrees outside in Illinois for almost 3 months and there hasn’t been a locally grown fresh organic anything here since November, maybe October! It seems an eternity ago and it seems so far off until we’ll have locally grown fresh organic spring peas and spinach again! What do I do? And then, there’s sugar – oh, the sugar. Why does so much of what I buy contain so much sugar anyway? Sheesh! Marketers are thriving on us. And our fears.

So, about feeding my kids fresh fruits and vegetables...and living in a cold winter climate…and having an hour, if I’m lucky, to prep for dinner… She told us straight up, in the winter months, buy canned or frozen! And actually, canned and frozen may be higher in nutrients than “fresh” produce shipped from California or foreign lands in mid-winter. That is because produce is picked at peak ripeness (which is when nutrient content is at its peak) and immediately flash frozen or processed for canning. If you look at the ingredients list on a can of vegetables, you should see few ingredients; hopefully, the main vegetable and water. She noted that the canned veggies often contain salt and it’s for flavor only; it’s not a preservative. She suggests rinsing the vegetables to remove that salt before you cook with them. If convenience, budget, or weather pushes you to the canned food aisle, that is OKAY! No guilt.

We talked about taking the fat out of our diets and drinking more milk. She suggests that after the age of two, a toddler should be taken off whole milk and be given a lower fat alternative, such as 2% or 1% milk. She couldn’t stress enough the importance of giving our children milk for vitamins and nutrients. She even said that if your child doesn’t like white milk, but will drink chocolate milk, then don’t be afraid to give them the chocolate milk! This is an example of making a trade-off where it is better to have the higher sugar in chocolate milk (versus white milk) than to not have milk at all. If chocolate milk is what your child needs in order to drink milk, then take sugar out of that child’s diet someplace else; that is OKAY. No guilt.

Jodie also addressed our concerns about some specific claims on labels. She said, as consumers, we have freedom to choose the food we buy and we should be open-minded and skeptical.

One label claim, in particular, that many of us were curious about was “Natural;” sometimes we see it on products despite a list of ingredients that we can’t pronounce. It doesn’t mean organic and, actually, doesn’t mean much of anything since most packaged foods are processed. The truth: The FDA does not have a legal definition for the term, but they do not object to its use if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances.

She touched upon the organic label because there is a growing public concern for having organic products. Producing organic products costs more than conventional methods. It’s an emotional issue, but an important part of having freedom to choose. If a product is organic it must have the USDA organic seal on the packaging. She told us there is no scientific research that tells us that organic food is healthier or tastier than conventional food. The levels of pesticides on conventional produce has been tested and deemed safe. There is more to the organic seal than pesticides, but it is her opinion, as far as food safety is concerned, pesticides are not our worry in the grocery store; packaging is more the problem when it comes to food safety. She reiterated it is more important to get our children to eat more fruits and vegetables than to worry about pesticides.

We were reminded that, whether we purchase conventional or organic produce, we should always wash it thoroughly under running water. Apparently, there is a misconception that organic produce is cleaner and, the truth is, that is not the case. Scrub firm produce, such as melons and cucumbers with a clean produce brush. Microorganisms thriving on the grooved surface of a melon can transfer to your cutting knife and contaminate the flesh of your melon!

While on the topic of food safety, Jodie told us our biggest food safety risks are in our own kitchens! Surprised? She told us that we have the safest food supply in the world. The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) regulates meat and poultry food labels. The FDA (Food and Drug Association) regulates all other product labels. Seafood labeling is voluntary. Science governs the regulations and the terms on labels have legal definitions. The most accurate sources of information related to food are the FDA or USDA websites and also universities.

Some people have food allergies or health conditions which may prohibit them from eating certain foods. The legal definitions of terms associated with content claims, like low-fat or gluten-free for example, can be found on the FDA’s website.

I visited the FDA and USDA websites and they are actually very easy to navigate and extensive – it’s easy to get caught in one of those “sit down for 5 minutes and get up a half-hour later” searches. Their search engine is effective if you know what you need to find. You can also find “Safe Food Handling Fact Sheets” on the USDA’s website for everything from BBQ, to the color of meat, to washing food!  Check it out! Let’s see how your kitchen measures up!