SNEB – Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior

Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior Welcomes Susan Stephenson-Martin as 2025-2026 President

SNEB Staff — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 18:45:39 +0000

INDIANAPOLIS (July 2025) – The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) is pleased to announce the appointment of Susan Stephenson-Martin, MS as its new President. The transition of leadership was formally recognized during the SNEB 2025 annual conference held in Indianapolis, Indiana from July 8 to July 11.

Stephenson-Martin succeeds Sarah Colby, PhD, RD, who served as president during the 2024-2025 term. In her new role, Stephenson-Martin will lead the association in advancing its mission to advance food and nutrition education research, practice, and policy that promote equity and support public and planetary health.

“I am honored to serve as President of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior and build upon the incredible work of my predecessors,” said Stephenson-Martin. “I look forward to working with our incredible leadership team, members, and staff to advance global leadership, research, and collaboration in nutrition education and behavior.”

Susan Stephenson-Martin, MS is currently the director of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

The SNEB 2025 International Conference gathered over 400 nutrition education professionals to inspire action and drive progress within the field.

For more information about the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior or to learn more about the leadership team, visit https://sneb-prod.mod9multimedia.com/.

# # #

Journalists interested in further comment or setting up an interview can reach out to SNEB Executive Director Nicole Brandt at nbrandt@sneb.org or Marketing and Communications Manager Andrew de Bie at adebie@sneb.org.

ABOUT THE SOCIETY FOR NUTRITION EDUCATION AND BEHAVIOR

The Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior is an international organization of nutrition education professionals who are dedicated to advancing food and nutrition education research, practice, and policy that promote equity, and support public and planetary health. To learn more, visit sneb.dev.mod9multimedia.com/.

Growing Our Commitment to Promoting Fruits and Vegetables: Looking Beyond the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables 2021

admin — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 00:16:24 +0000

Andrea Bersamin, Yenory Hernández-Garbanzo, Abiodun T. Atoloye, Jorge U. Gonzalez, Israel Ríos-Castillo, Thu Thu May Oo, Jinan Banna, Ahlam El Shikieri, Eunice Bonsi

Despite the essential benefits of fruits and vegetables (F&V), much of the world does not eat the minimum recommended amounts. In addition, nearly 50% of all F&V produced globally is wasted between harvest and consumption. 1 These issues put unnecessary pressures on both the health of the people and the planet.1
In recognition of the critical role F&Vs play in promoting both healthy diets and sustainable food systems, the United Nations declared 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV 2021). 2

As we approach the end of this celebration, we call on nutrition educators to continue and extend this important work beyond the IYFV 2021 through nutrition education actions that promote (1) advocacy and awareness raising, (2) knowledge creation and dissemination, (3) policy making, and (4) capacity development and education. 2

Advocacy and Awareness Raising

Transformative approaches for better F&V production and consumption starts with all of us advocating for systemic change. Let’s reach into our toolkit that includes a wide assortment of advocacy and awareness-raising tools from which to choose: 5-A-Day campaigns, webinars or virtual events related to F&V, and other fresh approaches such as cooking demonstrations, recipes contests, and exhibitions of local F&Vs in farm-to-school programs. 2 ^,3^, 4

Knowledge Creation and Dissemination

As nutrition educators, we play a vital role in building a strong evidence-base on the nutritional, health, and environmental benefits of the various components of F&V food systems, from production to consumption. We also play an important role in developing, validating, and promoting tools to measure F&V intake that are essential to monitoring progress toward reaching F&V consumption recommendations. By creatively varying our dissemination and implementation toolkit, findings are better translated into practice. 2

Policy Making

Evidence-informed policies that promote appropriate investments, partnerships, and holistic approaches to enhance F&V access and intake and reduce waste in a range of settings from schools to food pantries to hospitals can have a significant and sustained impact, especially now within the context of COVID-19. As nutrition educators, we can sensitize policy makers on the need for these synergistic policies. School-based nutrition policies in support of F&V, for example, should be comprehensive enough to promote the availability and access to locally grown F&V and school gardens, as well as the fruitful integration of gastronomy or quality food education initiatives. These types of policy actions can increase children’s F&V intake while simultaneously reducing food waste in national school meals programs. 2 ^,4 ^,5

Capacity Development and Education

A systematic approach to capacity development and education can amplify the impact we have as nutrition educators on increasing awareness, generating knowledge, and influencing policies around F&V food systems. Our reach should extend to producers, children, families, communities, and policy makers from multiple sectors. Only through meaningful engagement with a range of actors along the F&V food system can we make impactful progress toward the 2030 Global Development goals. 2 ^,3 ^,4 ^,5 ^,6

SNEB Division of International Nutrition Education (DINE)

Originally published in the November 2021 issue of The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

2050: The Year of Our Carbon-Neutral Food System

admin — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:12:43 +0000

Jasia (Jayne) Steinmetz, RD, CD

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphereand biosphere have occurred. 1

This is the leading conclusion in the first United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group report as part of the Sixth Assessment released on August 9. As science professionals, we understand the level of evidence necessary for the use of “unequivocal,” and this assessment presents the latest advances in climate change science with a deeper understanding of the relationship of specific levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases with physical changes on our planet, including extreme climate events—heat waves, heavy rainfall, and droughts—that are more frequent and severe. 1 The disruption affects not only humans but all other life on the planet, including plants and animals.

The necessary action was emphatically repeated throughout the IPCC press conference; there must be “rapid, strong and sustained reductions in emissions.” 2 Fossil fuel burning, the main source of our rising carbon dioxide levels must rapidly decline in the next two decades. Reductions of all greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide must reach net zero emissions by 2050, if we are to limit global warming to 1.5°C. 1 For the first time, the IPCC report details regional changes under different levels of GHG changes and the subsequent rise in temperature to provide the basis for immediate, appropriate actions necessary for resilience and mitigation.

To stop fossil fuel burning and reach net-zero GHG emissions by 2050 requires a methodical approach that involves all people across the planet. However, immediate, consistent individual change is necessary because every fraction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission released each day will compromise our future. Meerow and Woodruff 3 suggest 7 principles for strong climate change planning, which we can consider as we plan: set ambitious, yet attainable goals; provide a strong fact base with the best available data; outline diverse strategies to achieve goals; engage the public and foster justice in all planning processes; coordinate efforts to address climate change across actors, sectors, and plans; include a clear process for implementation and monitoring; and address climate change uncertainty.

The global food system, including food loss and waste emits 21% to 37% of the total global GHG emissions. 4 High-input, resource-intensive farming systems have high levels of GHG emissions and cannot deliver sustainable food and agricultural production. 5 While GHG emissions are produced at every step of the food system from farm to table, dominant food systems differ by nation and region resulting in different contributions to the climate change crisis. A lifecycle assessment of GHG emissions from U.S. household food choices found that 899 billion kilograms of CO₂ emissions were generated from food spending in 2013. 6 Of this, 67.9% was from production and manufacturing, 25.4% from restaurant and retail sectors, and 4.7% from truck transportation. Weekly CO₂ emissions per household were highest for red meat, fresh vegetables and melons, cheese, other milk products, and poultry. Identifying areas of greatest GHG emissions for different food systems will be necessary to develop the diverse strategies needed to reach our goal.

Increasingly, household food systems are dependent on national and global food systems, as we experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic-related food system disruptions; therefore, a global food system approach will avoid climate mitigation in one area of the food system that would be offset by increased emissions or loss of carbon sinks in another area, while supporting our biodiversity and natural resource base. Rosenzweig and colleagues 4 advocate for a global food system approach and list responses in different stages of the food system that synergistically support mitigation and adaptation while providing benefits to livelihoods, health, water, biodiversity, and reduced pollution. These responses include changes both in the supply side of improved plant and animal production and management, as well as demand-side responses such as dietary change, reduction of food loss, and reduction of food waste. 4

These changes align with a recent analysis by Clark and colleagues 7 that modeled 5 strategies to reduce global food system emissions to achieve the Paris Agreement climate change targets of limiting 1.5°C and 2°C above preindustrial levels. The five strategies include the following: globally adopt a plant-rich diet; adjust global per capita caloric consumption to healthy levels; achieve high yields by closing yield gaps and improve crop genetics and agronomic practices; reduce food loss and waste by 50%; and reduce the GHG intensity of foods by increasing efficiency of production. All 5 strategies would need to be implemented 100% to achieve the 2050 target; no single strategy would be successful.

This climate crisis demands immediate attention and significant sustained action. Our participation in developing a long-term strategy for food system change is necessary, and action can begin with knowing our regional food system. Which regional farmers incorporate or are transitioning to more sustainable production models, such as agroecology, silvapasture, and agroforestry? Does your region have policies to maintain access to affordable land, especially for small- and medium-holder farms? Can supply chains to retail, restaurants, and institutions be reduced? Do local laws support urban green spaces for gardens and foraging? Are there incubator spaces with certified kitchens available for entrepreneurs to develop added-value food products that help reduce food loss and waste? Do restaurants, schools, and community events celebrate with plant-based menus utilizing regionally sourced foods? Is food waste monitored in your community? We need daily effort to reach carbon-neutral behavior change by 2025. Let’s be the change and foster change.

Good-For-Them Gifts That Are Easy On Your Wallet

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 17:53:20 +0000

Affordable gift ideas to promote health/physical activity, local food outlets, growing something at home and help break out of cooking fatigue! Happy holiday giving!

Take-a-break ideas

These ideas are for taking those much needed breaks.

**A basket sampler of teas
**A tin filled w/popcorn and DIY seasonings (Mexican cocoa, gingerbread, cinnamon sugar, coconut curry and more or vegan chili cheese).
**A book about changing habits or intuitive eating or equitable and sustainable food systems or other topics.

Cooking fatigue ideas

These ideas help to break out of a cooking rut.

**Fill a decorative jar w/soup mix ingredients along w/a recipe.
**A sauce sampler with ideas about how to use them (sauces to consider including: gochujang, hot honey, Mexican hot sauce, Sriracha hot chili sauce)
**A basket filled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (tips on how to choose balsamic vinegar) or rice/pasta alternatives (consider quinoa, lentil pasta, amaranth, farro or whole wheat couscous).
**Make a spice/herb sampler in decorative bottles w/ideas for combining and using in recipes.
**Make homemade sweet chili sauce and put in a decorative bottle (this is a recipe I like that is less sticky/sweet than store bought: dissolve 1 tablespoon cornstarch in 3/4 cup water in a saucepan; add 1/2 cup sugar, 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon Sriracha and 2 tablespoons lime juice. Bring to a boil until it turns a slightly darker color, then simmer for a few minutes until sauce thickens a bit. Remove from heat. Pour into glass jar and cool in refrigerator. Lasts about a week in the refrigerator.)
**Cookbook or cooking/nutrition magazine subscription

Kitchen tool ideas

Having the right tool makes food prep oh-so enjoyable!

**Spiralizer vegetable peeler or mandoline
**Cutting board
**Chef‘s knife – oh what a difference a sharp blade makes especially when cutting butternut squash. On sale, I bought one – with a blade cover for about $8.
**A basket of gadgets such as a lemon or garlic press, a food thermometer, a rasp for grating.

Get moving ideas

Promote physical activity or jump-start it with these ideas.

**Yoga mat
**Jump rope
**Hand or walking weights
**Resistance bands
**Headlamp/reflector for walking @ dusk or in the dark
**Water bottle/cap/visor
**Earbuds w/a list of recommended nutrition/health podcasts.

Outside-the-box ideas

How about supporting something local that’s food-related or promoting growing something at home?

**Donate to a local food charity or food pantry in someone’s name.
** Give a gift certificate to a food store the person typically shops at or wants to try or a local food store to support a local business or a local farmer/vendor such as a CSA (community-supported agriculture).
**Grow something at home with a kit: an indoor herb garden starter kit, a mushroom-growing kit or a veggie seed kit.

Looking Back and Moving Forward: SNEB Commitment to Embracing Racial Equity and Social Justice

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:07:52 +0000

As 2020 closes, Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) members will remember a year unlike any other. Friends, relatives, or colleagues may be included in the sobering statistics of more than 219,000 lives lost to COVID-19.¹ We have faced significant disruptions in our personal, political, economic, social, and professional ways of thinking and being. From food justice, COVID-19 justice, racial justice, climate justice, to policing justice, this year has amplified inequities routinely experienced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

Nutrition professionals are well aware of food, health, and wealth disparities that affect our clients and communities. We know BIPOC have higher rates of food insecurity than non-Hispanic White people. ²^,³ Emergent COVID-19 data indicates food insecurity4 and morbidity and mortality are likewise disproportionately affecting BIPOC populations.⁵^,⁶

At this moment in history, nutrition professionals are uniquely poised to work towards racially equitable andjust food systems by strategically re-imagining a new normal.⁷ We know that the answers lie not only in addressing the immediate issue of household hunger and diet-related disease. Systemically addressing poverty through establishing living wages for all, and eliminating opportunity, health, and wealth disparities between genders and between non-Hispanic White people and BIPOC would structurally advance equity practices.⁸^,⁹

How will we leverage current momentum to explicitly address race and racism in our work? The SNEB leadership has recognized its role.¹⁰ In response to police injustice experienced by the BIPOC community, the SNEB Board issued a statement to end racism and challenge nutrition organizations and professionals to be part of the solution.¹⁰ “SNEB can play a critical role in exposing and addressing food injustices and racial disparities in the food system” by promoting empowering communities to change their local food systems, demand routine access to healthy food for all, and dismantle food-related discrimination in our institutions, at the local, state, tribal, and national level.¹¹

The SNEB board members committed to participate in a racial equity training series, modeled after the Food Solutions New England 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge.¹² Each spring, this Challenge provides open access to readings and resources that deeply examine racism and also identify strategies for dismantling racism in our food system. Individuals and organizations from across sectors and the country commit to “Learn, Reflect and Act” as they build skill and will for food system transformation. The Food Systems Educators Community of Practice (CoP), sponsored by Columbia University, Institute of Human Nutrition, is another option for food system educators to train ourselves and those we teach to address racism. A subgroup of the CoP recently published a paper calling for equity, especially racial equity, to be a standard competency in food system program content and practice.¹³

Racism and the related economic and health disparities are human-made conditions. The solutions are within our reach given the political will to structurally and systemically address them. As educators and practitioners, we shape present and future generations. This is the time; this is our charge.

“Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.” ― Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

This editorial was originally published in the December 2020 issue (Vol. 52, Issue 12) of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Optimizing Lessons Learned from COVID-19’s Effects on School Nutrition Programs

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 17:55:44 +0000

The closure of US public schools during the COVID-19 public health emergency has affected up to 55 million students, 13.6% of whom come from food insecure households.¹^,² In the study reported by McLoughlin et al., they remind us of the breadth of services that schools offer to children and families. ³ Not only do schools seek to educate and provide opportunities for cognitive and social-emotional growth, they also support physical growth and health, providing nutritional stability and food security for children and families in need. In their work, McLoughlin and colleagues demonstrated both initiative and foresight in examining how COVID-19-related closures of schools may have affected school districts’ abilities to continue to provide meals during a public health emergency. They systematically investigated the presence and clarity of child nutrition agencies’ communications and guidance aimed at personnel who administer nutrition programs and for children and families who participate in said programs. They focused on availability and location of school meals and the extent to which additional flexibility was permissible to serve children and families during the COVID-19 emergency.

On a positive note, they report that a majority of jurisdictions included information about school meals in their school closure announcements and provided information related to meal site location and content of meals continuing to be offered. However, guidance regarding safe implementation of continued meal provisions and clear information directed towards the families to be served were noted less often. A missed opportunity was the potential to partner with other agencies that fight hunger and food insecurity and to synergize efforts to support those most in need.

Of particular interest is their mention of the Public Charge Rule, which states that immigrants who have received public benefits for 12 months out of any 36-month period may be ineligible to become lawful permanent residents. ⁴ Such public benefits include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program but not, currently, assistance supplied by school nutrition programs. Thus, I learned that in addition to bolstering food security for the growing number of children and families who find themselves needing help, school meals also represent allowable support for immigrant families who struggle with poverty, and school meals provide this support with fewer potential unintended consequences.

I do not believe that anyone wants to contemplate another year of school closures. That said, many schools remain online or with hybrid online/in-person schedules, and the potential of closure in the future remains real. Thus, this research calls out to the nutrition community to perform even better in future public health emergencies by defining and articulating guidance for safe implementation of continued provision of school meals such that school personnel and families are protected, by developing clear communications for families who depend upon these services, and by partnering with other local and national organizations to fully and efficiently support children and families.

This editorial was originally published in the December 2020 issue (Vol. 52, Issue 12) of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Cooking Fatigue: How to Overcome It & Resources

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:11:19 +0000

Cooking fatigue‘ has set in…many are tired of cooking at home, cooking for no one/themselves/family. A survey of 2,000 Americans conducted for SunBasket found that the average respondent had prepared the same dish 28 times since the pandemic began. The survey identified some familiar sources of cooking fatigue – time, prep work needed, clean-up and planning. A program associate with Rutgers Cooperative Extension, Warren County suggests getting help from others especially with clean-up tasks; use convenience foods such as frozen veggies, canned beans and use leftovers. Finally, have some fun with meals. Can’t travel? Prepare recipes from other parts of the world. Consider redefining what a ‘meal’ is – try a ‘build your own’ baked potato bar. And, here’s a blast from the past… quarantine recipe chain emails are back.

Using leftovers

Some unique ideas such as using leftover pasta in stir-fries instead of rice. Lots of great ideas here including leftover cookie crumbs on top of ice cream (Greek yogurt, too!) and pour leftover chili over leftover rice so it doesn’t dry out in the fridge. And Love Food Hate Waste has a recipe search using specific leftovers as well as filters including dietary considerations, difficulty and prep time. Who better than the Academy of Culinary Nutrition to have great ideas for leftovers such as crumbling a burger over a salad and folding tomato paste into scrambled eggs. Spend Smart Eat Smart (Iowa State University Extension and Outreach) is a great resource…searching using the term ‘leftovers’ I found this hot pumpkin drink using pumpkin purée and it suggests ways to use leftover pumpkin puree.

You don’t have to pay for online cooking videos (and other resources)

Share Our Strength offers a weekly Facebook Cooking Matters live cooking class and there is a YouTube channel with recipe demos.
One free online cooking class is Kitchn Cooking School (20 basic lessons).
Publix Aprons Cooking School videos is series of videos with Publix’s chef.
Spend Smart Eat Smart videos (Iowa State University Extension and Outreach) has videos in many categories including ‘easy recipes.’
Food Hero (Oregon State University) has videos, Spanish language materials and 30 minutes or less/5 ingredients or less recipes.
MyPlate Kitchen (USDA) includes videos and recipes w/nutrition information and cost. Build your own personalized cookbook, save and download.
Video Recipes (Cornell Cooperative Extension – Clinton County).
Healthy Meals for Oklahoma Families on the Go! videos includes Spanish language videos.
Create series – English/Spanish handouts (Utah State University Extension) provides guidance on how to pull together 12 different dishes as well as English/Spanish videos.
Brighter Bites on-line cookbook offers unique recipes including super duper sweet potato dip, Texas corn and blueberry salad, sautéed Brussels sprouts with apples and pecans and more!

RDs recommend healthy cookbooks

Cookbook sales increased 15% in 2020 compared to 2019 according to this publishing company article. With e-books/e-magazines and other digital resources now available through public libraries, finding recipes is easier than ever. Here is one cookbook recommendation list, 25 healthy cookbooks from RDs includes budget-aware choices, search online to find other lists. And you can always see what new cookbooks are on the horizon by searching ‘new cookbook releases.’

Family Meals

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 18:15:15 +0000

Family meals have changed quite a bit over the past 6 or 8 months. We may be eating at home more with immediate family or eating alone more often because we aren’t getting to restaurants. We may be trying more new recipes because of boredom or eating more frozen meals because of fatigue and stress. Looking back over the past year of meal-related articles brought some interesting highlights.

A systematic review published in May concerning the relation between family meal frequency and dietary and family functioning outcomes in children aged 2 18 years concluded that there was some evidence of a positive relationship between family meal frequency and dietary outcomes.¹ There was stronger evidence for the relation with family functioning outcomes and family meal frequency. These results may be very different when we examine these associations during the pandemic because the family functioning outcomes of family connectedness or cohesion, communication, expressiveness, or conflict or problem-solving might be altered by many stresses we are experiencing.

In a similar vein, family communication was an important consideration in the study by Pratt et al.² In this study, weight talk, dietary habits, and family communication were assessed in 259 patients who had a child aged 2 to 18 years. Patients with higher family communication and younger children were more likely to eat breakfast together. Would this still be true today? In a cross-sectional analysis of 280 Hispanic seventh and eighth graders with overweight or obesity, mealtime communication was associated with fruit and vegetable consumption in boys and physical activity in girls.³ Some results were different for single- vs. dual-headed families. The association between family meal-time communications and fruit and vegetable intake was stronger for girls in single-parent households. For boys, single-parent households did not moderate any of the relationships between mealtime communication and the health outcomes; however, it did have an association with fruit and vegetable intake. The authors conclude that our strategies for behavior change may need to be tailored for family composition. However, in these days of the pandemic, have obesity-related behaviors changed?

Our authors are beginning to submit COVID-19-related work examining some of these questions as well as others. While I hope this will be a blip in our research and practice, I also believe we will learn much about the effects of illness, stress, and food insecurity in our research and practice. I hope we continue to receive such manuscripts.

On a couple of technical notes, reviewers please update your classifications of expertise in Editorial Manager so that we can correctly match manuscripts and reviewers. For authors, to create citations from the papers in JNEB online, I wanted to highlight that you need to need to click on the full-text HTML and then click on “save” for you to get to the export citation function.

This editorial was originally published in the November 2020 issue (Vol. 52, Issue 11) of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

New Dietary Guidelines, New Opportunities

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 18:13:33 +0000

UPSTREAM NUTRITION EDUCATION

In my 35 years as a nutrition educator, I am often too busy doing the proverbial, “pulling drowning people out of the river to go upstream and stop people from getting in.”

Yet, I had an opportunity to do upstream nutrition education with a fifth-grade class. It started during a pre-intervention survey about vegetables. A student asked, “can I write you a message?”

The message was “Kids my age DO NOT [sic] eat vegetables.” In another lesson aimed at teaching why to drinking less soda and other sweetened beverages a student blurted out, “soda and fruit drinks are what we have, and that is what we drink.” I stopped the planned activities and asked the students to share. They told me how soda, fruit drinks, chips, and candy were everywhere in their world while vegetables were mostly absent. I listened and thought about social inequities and the real challenges to find healthy food in their neighborhood. A few weeks of these conversations and the students talked to the manager of the store close to the school to put fruit closer to register instead of chips and candy bars. They also became excited about the salad bar at school lunch after we went to talk to the school lunch staff who played up the salad bar.

Yet, we know, even with the most well-designed nutrition education, vegetable consumption is particularly hard to change, A meta-analysis found school-based nutrition education interventions increased vegetables by only 0.07 portions.¹

GOING FURTHERWITH THE NEW DGAS

Despite 4 decades of Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), half of the adults in the United States have preventable, chronic diseases, many of which are related to diet and physical activity practices.² We also know unhealthy diets increase the severity of COVID-19.³

The last 3 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) Reports discussed the importance of using a social ecological approach to address social determinants of health.4−6 We have started to do this by making meals offered through the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and meals offered through the Older American’s Act meet the DGAs.² Now it is time to take the next step. Let’s make the materials and programming created to accompany the 9th edition of the DGAs truly take on—and eliminate—the inequities in the availability of health-promoting foods across different communities. Communities with Black, indigenous, and people of color have had inequitable access to health-promoting foods for generations. We have the opportunity to change this.

We can take advantage of the Center for Policy and Promotion’s (CNPP) new infrastructure within the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition service. This provides increased opportunities for CNPP to work with federal nutrition assistance programs, especially SNAP- Ed, for innovative policies, system change, and environmental supports. Let’s make this the time that we do upstream nutrition education so that in 5 years, when the next DGAC report is released, it can report on more equitable access to healthy foods, big improvements on Healthy Eating Index⁷ scores, and lower rates of diet-related, preventable chronic diseases.

This editorial was originally published in the November 2020 issue (Vol. 52, Issue 11) of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

Evans CEL, Christian MS, Cleghorn CL, Greenwood DC, Cade Systematic review and meta-analysis of school-based interventions to improve daily fruit and vegetable intake in children aged 5 to 12 y. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012;96:889–901.
US Department of Health and Human Services and US Department of Agricul- 2015−2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 8th ed. http://health.gov/di- etaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/. Accessed September 21, 2020.
Butler MJ, Barrientos The impact of nutrition on COVID-19 susceptibility and long-term consequences. Brain Be- hav Immun. 2020;87:53–54.
Dietary Guidelines Advisory Commit- Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service; 2010.

Dietary Guidelines Advisory Commit- Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee: Advisory Report to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Agriculture. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Ser vice; 2015.

Dietary Guidelines Advisory Commit tee. Scientific Report of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee: Advisory Report to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Ser vice; 2020.

Krebs-Smith S, Pannucci T, Subar A, Kirkpatrick S, Lerman J, Tooze Update of the Healthy Eating Index: HEI-2015. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2018;118: 1591–1602.

Reimagine this…recipes using food in new ways

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 18:17:14 +0000

With the holidays coming maybe there’s more time to try new recipes using food in new ways. Consider using dessert hummus, butternut squash, sweet potatoes and more in new and interesting ways. Enjoy!

For the holidays…

Use dessert hummus:
- Pumpkin pie parfaits w/pudding, pumpkin pie spice hummus, whipped cream and fruit (consider omitting the caramel sauce);
- Dark chocolate hummus trifle (consider a lighter cake like angel food cake instead of the brownies);
- Or frost cupcakes with dessert hummus to cut the calories and sugar.
Add fiber to those potatoes…mashed potatoes with white beans.

Butternut squash…

Butternut squash hummus (made without chickpeas);
Butternut fruit leather;
Butternut squash frittata made w/roasted, mashed squash;
Oatmeal w/squash and topped w/tahini, sugar or maple syrup;
Squash dessert.

Peanut butter and…

Sriracha and peanut butter sandwich;
Peanut butter oatmeal raisin (and bean) cookies.

Sweet potatoes…

Baked sweet potato topped with peanut butter;
Sweet potato toast – toast smeared w/roasted sweet potato and cinnamon, sugar, broiled; OR toast smeared w/roasted sweet potato topped w/a cooked egg, drizzled w/tahini, Sriracha;
Sweet potato, lettuce and tomato sandwich – roast slices of sweet potato, add mayo, greens and tomatoes;
Breakfast sweet potato pudding;
Sweet potato balls or sweet potato balls with less sugar;
Sweet potato ice cream (soft or more frozen) made with sweet potato and bananas;
Creamy sweet potato kefir smoothie (can also be made with pumpkin purée).

This ‘n that…

Herbed avocado egg salad (made without mayo);
Banana jam;
Peach chipotle sauce;
5-minute chocolate hummus;
Frozen yogurt fruit bark;
Cooking with tea .