As taxpayers, we all groan when a levy comes up for vote or the property tax bill comes due or when we realize how much is taken out of our paychecks for taxes.  But last week was a week when I fully saw our tax dollars going to work for us, and in a good way as it relates to health and nutrition.

Consumers say that one of their biggest frustrations about nutrition is that it seems to be constantly changing.  One year, we say cutting back on fat will help you lose weight, than five years later, we tell you that you’re eating too many carbohydrates.  It’s confusing and frustrating.  I get it, and I agree.

But last week, a report came out of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that is trying to lessen the confusion.  In the media, you have likely heard much about vitamin D and calcium and potential benefit these nutrients may have for managing PMS, cancer, heart disease, etc.  But with the free information flow through the internet these days, you don’t know what to believe or not to believe.  This is why the IOM stepped in.  It’s their role to assess the most current scientific information and synthesize it into nutrition recommendations for consumers.  So what did they find?  After reviewing 1,000 articles, the recommendation for calcium stays the same.  For vitamin D, the recommendation has increased to 400-600 IU per day.  We all get some vitamin D from the sun hitting our skin, so the range accommodates how much sun exposure we all get (and likely the part of the country we live in, right?!).

Also reported last week was the fact that the House of Representatives passed a child nutrition bill (which had already been passed by the Senate), and have sent it off to the President’s desk for his signature.  Over the next ten years, the bill increases the spending on child nutrition programs, giving schools more dollars to improve the nutrition quality of the food they serve to today’s kids, with focus on more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins.  The bill also would require standards be set for food sold throughout the school environment, so vending machines couldn’t offer candy bars and soda pop, while the cafeteria food is required to comply with nutrition standards.  Today, the school lunch program feeds more than 31 million students, 62% of whom are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch.  For many kids, this is the only real meal they get each day, and at the current rate of $2.72 per students, it’s hard for schools to provide a highly nutritious meal.

As a nutrition professional, I know there will be debate about both actions.  But from my perspective, I think it’s important to acknowledge that nutrition is a major part of the federal discussion.  We are finally in a mode where it is commonly understood that focus on prevention (through good nutrition, activity, smoking cessation and other lifestyle habits) costs much less than treating the major diseases that are currently driving our country into debt.

Visit www.nuval.com to see a system that includes both vitamin D and calcium in the scores, and that has the power to help schools bring more nutritious foods into school lunch.

When you take a step back and look at the big picture of our food environment, one of the things you notice is that food is everywhere.  At the gas station, in vending machines on every floor of office buildings, at every sporting event.  It can make it difficult to manage the amount of food we eat and the total calories we consume, especially as most of the food offered in this venues isn’t at the top of the nutrition scale.  Last Friday, The New York Times reported on a food addition to yet one more location – Walgreens.  Now drug stores are selling food?  But this addition may turn out to be a really good thing. 

“Food deserts” is a fairly new term in the food world, and refers to geographic locations where there are few to no grocery stores offering healthy foods (think produce) and many convenience stores and fast food restaurants offering salty snacks and foods with little positive nutrition.  Food deserts often exist in economically depressed areas. 

This is where Walgreens comes in.  As you know, these stores are everywhere.  It’s part of their marketing genius and success.  They’re in local neighborhoods making it convenient to get those prescriptions filled when you need to.  The convenience of the stores makes them ideal for offering fresh and healthy food products in food deserts.  Walgreens is currently testing selling food in ten stores in food deserts in Chicago, the city where the company got its start.

While for many of us it may be difficult to image no access to foods like fruits, vegetables and skim milk, there are growing areas of the country where this is a problem.  Making more nutritious food options readily available is a powerful step towards positively changing the environment and making it easier to make the healthy choice.   So kudos to Walgreens for pursuing a business model that may prove to be good for their company’s health as well as their customers’ health. 

Walgreens, if you’re reading, I recommend you visit www.nuval.com to choose the most nutritious food options to offer in your stores.

Yesterday, I spent the day at a meeting of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Front-of-Package label schemes.  The committee’s work is all related to whether an industry-wide series of icons on the front of packages would help consumers make more nutritious food choices.  The rationale behind the work is that our collective health is in dire straits.  More people are overweight than ever, and more kids are being diagnosed with diabetes and heart disease.  What we eat is a major part of the problem.

The charge of the committee is to make a recommendation to the agencies that regulate food packages on what the best options are on the front of food labels to help consumers make healthier food choices.

Unfortunately, after five straight hours of sitting in a chair and listening to speaker after speaker on this topic yesterday, I came away more confused than ever.

The reality is that we live in a world of individualization, so to choose one solution that helps all consumers make healthier choices is likely an impossible task.  Clutter is everywhere and depending on your skills and interests as well as your lifestyle and life stage, you’re either good at managing clutter – including clutter on food labels – or you’re not.  If you’re managing a disease like diabetes or gluten intolerance or are more interested in general wellness you may look for different information on the label and want different tools to help you decide which products to stock in your pantry.

So at the end of a long day, I’m wondering if several systems are really the best option (at least for front-of-package labeling), allowing consumers to make the choice as to which option works for them and which option helps them build healthier eating habits.  After all, why does the right answer have to be just one answer?

Visit www.nuval.com to learn about a nutritional ranking system that I professionally and personally recommend.

Topic #1:  A sure sign of summer in Minnesota is actually a sound – the ringing bell of the ice cream truck.  As a kid, all of us in the neighborhood would come running when we heard that bell.  There was nothing like a frosty ice cream treat in the heat of summer.  Last week, I heard that same bell ringing in my neighborhood, and it brought back great memories.  Summer, friends, running the neighborhood. .. the delight of childhood. ..

Topic #2:  As First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign has brought to light, one of the issues in achieving healthy eating habits as part of the equation to lower childhood obesity rates is access to fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods in some neighborhoods.  For some people, their only grocery store is a convenience store.  Transportation issues can also make it difficult for some to get to grocery stores that offer a good assortment of fruits, vegetables, skim milk, whole grain breads, low fat meats, etc.

So how do Topic #1 and #2 intersect?  In the call to action I am making today.

There are companies like Schwan’s, Coborns Delivers, Pea Pod, and others that have refrigerated trucks running delivery routes throughout the country. Why can’t they be the ice cream trucks of healthy eating, driving through neighborhoods selling only healthy options?  Why can’t they turn their marketing genius onto this initiative – making selling fruits and vegetables off their trucks as compelling as the ice cream truck was in my childhood?

So this is my call to action, and I’m asking for your help.  Reach out to your friends, your neighbors, your FB connections to help find contacts from companies like Schwans and Pea Pod, and get them to respond to this idea here on this blog.  I’ll keep posting it until we hear from someone.  As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and it takes efforts from all parts of our communities to solve problems like childhood obesity.

Visit nuval.com to know the most nutritious products to load on those trucks.