Community Nutrition

Community Nutrition, also known as NUTR 430 is an upper level nutrition course offered to Nutritional Science majors who have already completed certain prerequisites within the major. I have learned a lot through this class, and most of it has not been text-book information, but real life application. One of our projects during the semester was to live for 5 days off of a budget that is similar to that of Food Stamps. During this uninterrupted 5 day period we were to try to maintain as healthy a diet as possible with only $16.40 to spend the entire 5 days on food. As part of the project, we were to keep a food journal that described what we ate, how we felt throughout the day and the nutritional requirements we either did or did not meet during the day. It was a really challenging project in that it forced me to gain understanding of the difficulties so many people have in meeting their nutritional needs, especially those on very restricted budgets. Not only was it difficult to eat enough food on such a small budget, but it was also challenging to eat healthy! It was so frustrating to go to the store and realize how expensive it is to buy many of the healthy foods offered. I also learned how much patience and effort it would take for someone on such a limited budget to really eat well with so little money. I had to plan my meals for the week and carry a calculator with me in the store to make sure I didn't go over my alloted budget. During the week I also found difficulty in adding variety to my meals, there were no spices to be added and I had very few options for changing up the rice and beans or oatmeal that I ate almost daily.
I think this class was really advantageous for my future career plans in that I not only was educated in how to work with people of lower socioeconomic status, but I was actually able to experience on some level the way in which they live and the boundaries they may come across in trying to eat healthily. I think this class and the projects that have been assigned in the class will prove very helpful to me in the future as I seek to help those with lesser means utilize wha means they do have in effort to live more healthy and enriching lives.

I've Got an Issue: It's a Salt Attack!

I am so tired of processed foods that are full of added salt being pawned off as healthy at the grocery store! I cannot count the number of times that I have been to the store and picked up an item that is cleverly marketed to appear nutritious, only to look at the nutrition facts and see that there are 800 mg of Sodium in one serving. Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen! According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Sodium intake should be restricted to allow no more than 2,000 mg per day, but research indicates that most Americans consume twice the recommended intake- thats 4,000 mg per day. The dangers of consuming too much Sodium are serious, as it has been linked to increased blood pressure and heart disease, which is the number one disease that people in America die from today. There are hefty consequences for consuming too much Sodium in the diet, yet when I go to the grocery store, the aisles are packed with items, even "healthy" items, that are full of added salt. With the incidence of heart disease increasing among the American population, action must be taken. If the food producers are unwilling to be more conscientious of the amount of salt that they add to their food products in processing, then it is up to the American consumer to become more aware of the foods they eat and their contents. Reduced consumption of added salt has been proven again and again to decrease the risk of heart disease and to improve blood pressure levels. With such strong conclusions being drawn from various studies, the implications for the need to decrease the amount of salt in the diet are obvious and worth heeding.

The Organic Craze

Is organic food healthier? This is the question of the hour in mainstream nutrition news, and one confronted in an article by Lauren Serkes, who is a columnist for Diamondback Online. In this article Serkes tries to persuade readers that although there is a growing trend to buy organic food, there is no research to prove its alleged health benefits over conventional foods and the public should not fall into this craze of buying all foods organic without such evidence. Serkes uses a few helpful tools and strategies in making her case against the promotion of organic foods as being healthier than foods that are not organic. Several times throughout the article Serkes repeats her opinion that organic foods are not empirically healthier than non-organic foods. Serkes uses this strategy of persuasion effectively, making her point in different ways and locations throughout the article, likely adding to the reader's understanding of her argument. Serkes also provided excellent and researched reasons as to why she does not believe that organic food is necessarily healthier than other foods. Her opinion of this topic became much more concrete and legit in my eyes after reading her well-thought and researched explanations. Serkes also used the method of comparison to drive home her main point. Serkes, brilliantly used a well-known food product and its label to point out a major difference between the weak health claims of organic foods and foods that are labeled with such claims for their proven health benefits. Serkes used these and other techniques to propose a strong argument against the assumption that organic foods are by nature healthier than other foods. Her argument could have been more effective had she had conveyed the message more clearly and deliberately to her audience. The article is full of her opinion, and she did a great job of making her opinion clear, however it was only loosely tied to the audience and their need to re-think the health benefits of organic products, making her persuasion less successful.