#also i watch them eat things i cannot eat Ever because of my food allergies/intolerances and im just like huhu.....THAT is vicarious living

[sovaharbor]

need to stop watching mukbang videos before bed i keep making myself so HUNGRYYYYYYY

[thebibliosphere]

I just wanted to put out the ask to you joy, and any others. I have been diagnosed with food allergies, and I have two thoughts / questions. One, has anyone ever had an allergy that was present, then went away? My doctor diagnosed me as allergic to eggs, and then when I went back 6 months later, that allergy was gone, and replaced with two others (foods that I had been eating up to that point, and was now allergic to.) Next, what's a good pasta replacement for allergy to rice corn and wheat?

Hi @lilnizzie I’m going to throw this under a cut as it got pretty long, but I hope you are able to view this. Let me know if the readmore breaks it.

Allergies can and do fluctuate... but not typically in that way for most people.

Some people grow out of allergies, while others grow into them. And then there’s the people like me whose bodies cannot regulate histamine, (something which we all produce and need for important cell functions like healing and keeping us safe from pathogens) and who can develop fluctuating allergies depending on how overstimulated their mast cells are, which are the cells that regulate histamine release into the tissue and blood.

You may have seen me refer to my condition as MCAS, or mast cell activation syndrome. Basically, those all-important cells of mine don’t work quite right, and as part of that, I have developed a severe histamine intolerance or HIT for short.

So for instance, eggs, particularly the white of eggs, are high in histamine (the yolk is not, weird how that works right?) and some folk with histamine regulation problems (HIT) may not be able to eat them at all, while others are able to eat the yolk, or some folks like me who are able to eat eggs as part of an ingredient (say, cornbread) provided our “histamine bucket” isn’t overflowing.

Which okay, how do I explain this... so have you heard the phrase “window of tolerance?” As in, your threshold for being able to cope with things? Well, they used to refer to this reaction as being “histamine window of tolerance”, but since more research has come to light that suggests our inability to self regulate histamine is down to a stacking effect, hence the analogy of the bucket. The more you put into an already full bucket, the more things will overflow, and before you know it you are dealing with the overspill of problems.

This can either be caused by diet, elemental factors such as pollen, dust, pet dander, etc. etc., heat, cold, exercise, and yes, even stress. (This is because mast cells are in every tissue in the body, including the brain, and they do not like stress hormones, no they do not.) For some people, the reactions are mild and fleeting and may even be mistaken for hayfever, causing only minor ailments that can be regulated by taking anti-histamines. Some others are unfortunate enough to develop full-blown MCAS (or other mast cell issues) and are at risk of anaphylaxis and must carry an epi-pen at all times. I’m one of the latter. If it helps, think of it as a sliding scale disorder, with mild HIT on one end, and “What-in- the-name-of-God-is-this?!?” level of reactions on the other.

The condition can be managed, usually through diet and lifestyle changes for those with a mild case of HIT, and with the addition of mast cell stabilizing meds for those with the more severe MCAS.

So, why am I detailing all of this? Well, it might help to know that yes, the body can and does go off the deep end sometimes, and healthy people can and do develop new allergies over time. But I’ll level with you, all the foods you listed up there are poorly tolerated by folks with HIT when their “buckets” are full, and your fluctuating egg allergy might also be a clue that something isn’t quite working the way it ought to.

Of course, I’m not a doctor and I cannot give you any real concrete advice, only my own experiences of learning to manage this condition over the last 8 months after an astute nutritionist looked at all my food intolerances and allergies, and finally after years of suffering, offered me a diagnosis.

But what I will say, given that you’re already talking to an allergist, is that it might not be a bad idea to get your blood tryptase levels checked. It’s not an entirely accurate test, as you need to be in the midst of a flare to get a result, but for some folk it can tell the doc right off the bat if something is going awry, making it a good first stage in ruling out more severe conditions which may be causing your allergic responses to fluctuate in this way.

Now, I know that’s a whole wall of text right there, and I’d hate for you to be reading it and panicking, so allow me to say, if you do have issues with regulating histamine on your own, it is manageable. Since getting my diagnosis 8 months ago, I am a lot more stable than I have been for...probably my entire life tbh (Sure my pernicious anemia didn’t help, but the MCAS is its own ordeal.) I’m even getting to eat more foods as my body stabilizes and stops being in a state of continual meltdown. Which is amazing! Fruit! Iconic!

Sure there are some foods I’ll never be able to eat again, but eh, there’s better things in life :)

Also, just in case anyone recs it in the comments or reblogs, yes there is such a thing as a low histamine diet, but it is not a long term solution and should ideally only be carried out under medical supervision. The low HIT diet is extremely low on nutrients, and if done for too long can cause all sorts of other health issues. I was left on mine for over 2 years by a negligent doctor, and am only just now starting to recover from the extreme malnourishment this caused. Apparently, the longest you should do it for is 2-4 weeks to see if symptoms improve, and then you try adding foods back in one at a time to see what you can tolerate. Who knew? (I wish I had.)

Again, not a doctor, I can’t diagnose you and I am not even saying this is what your problem is, but given what you’re asking me, I feel it prudent to share my knowledge about the wonderful world of fluctuating allergies that seem to come and go with no rhyme or reason.

As for things you can supplement, oatmeal can be used to create a savory dish that is similar to rice. I used to cook mine up with a stock cube to make it savory, then add my vegetables into. It was like a very Scottish version of risotto, but I liked it lol. ETD tells me it tastes like “stuffing” which I dunno if that’s good or not, but he always eats it when I make it. If you have issues with stock cubes, cooking it up with salt and using things like fresh herbs will have a similar effect.

You may also be able to use things like coconut flour, or spelt flour, though not everyone can eat spelt if they have a wheat issue, so watch out for that. Tapioca flour is also an option, as are nut flowers if you’re trying to bake. Watch out for a lot of boxed gluten-free stuff though, xanthum gum is typically derived from corn.

Another option would be to make “vegetable mash” which is basically what it sounds like. I like to use potato for mine because it’s one of the few carbs I can get, mash it up, then dice in my other veggies (and meat of choice) and that’s basically how I avoided grains for as long as I did. Sweet potato works well for this too. Basically, if you have to avoid grains, which it sounds like you do, veggies are a good way to keep your carbs up.

Anyway, I hope some of this was helpful... I feel like I rambled, but... yeah, I know way too much about this kind of thing for someone who went to school for liberal arts lol

[downtownhomested]

I love yogurt, and knowing how to make my own homemade yogurt is a skill that provides me with this tasty treat all the time.

I know, I can here you now, “homemade yogurt! I’m not that great in the kitchen!” Well fret not, it is actually very easy if you follow the directions below.

  What do you need to make homemade yogurt

1 quart Whole Milk

2 large dollops of natural yogurt with active live bacteria (Okay so you do have to take a trip to the store once).

That’s it for ingredients, nothing fancy. Now below are the instructions for simple healthy homemade yogurt:

Step 1- Add 1 quart of whole milk to a saucepan and heat until small bubbles appear around the outside of the saucepan (but do not boil). Heat milk to about 170 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the milk from the heat and allow to cool. Cooling will be quicker if you stand the saucepan in cold water.

      Step 2- When the temperature of the milk has dropped to between 110 to 115 F, take out one cup of the milk and add in the the yogurt starter culture. The simplest starter culture to use is one quarter of a cup of plain commercial yogurt (it’s important that it contains live cultures though). Mix in the starter until it has dissolved.

    Step 3- Slowly mix your starter combination back into the rest of the milk.

  Step 4- Place the mixture into several small, sterilized containers (you can sterilize your containers by simple filling them with boiling water). Then seal the containers tightly.

        Step 5- Allow the yogurt to incubate in a warm place to encourage the bacteria to grow. The temperature should be as close to 100 degrees as possible. I usually use my stove with a halogen bulb in place of the standard oven light. You could also place the containers into a bowl of hot water that is just about bearable to the touch.

Step 6- Allow the mixture to sit at this temperature for a minimum of seven hours. After this period of time you should have a container full of mixture that looks similar to custard and smells rather cheesy. It may also have a greenish liquid film over the top. Do not panic, this is exactly what you are looking for, if you get the greenish film, on top, simply skim it off.

  Step 7- Experiment with the time that you leave the yogurt. If you leave it for longer than seven hours it will make yogurt that is thicker, and it will have a tangier taste.

Step 8- Place the yogurt into a fridge for several hours to chill. It will keep for up to two weeks and you can save a small amount to use as your culture for the next batch.

  Step 9- Remove from the fridge and serve with any variety of jams, preserves, nuts, fruit or honey…delicious! My favorite mix is to put some honey in it, then a little salt, the sweet/salty taste is just simply heaven!

        Honestly, making healthy homemade yogurt is just that simple. But each step has some options, and you can choose the ones that best suit you and what equipment you have at home.

The intention behind heating the milk is to kill off all the bacteria that are already there. Even if there are already some “good” bacteria, they may not be the proper ones for making yogurt. For instance, the bacteria that exists in buttermilk will turn cream into creme fraiche, which is like sour cream. And of course, the bad germs we do not want for obvious reasons.

The best method for heating is to use a thermometer while heating the milk on medium-low heat in a sauce pan on the stove. Make sure it gets to 175 degrees at least, and preferably 180 degrees, as you may be measuring a “hot spot”.

Another way is to use a glass container to heat the milk in a microwave. By adjusting the time, volume and power you will eventually learn the proper settings to get the right temperature. Be careful though, as the glass container will be VERY hot when removing it from the microwave.

If you do not have a thermometer (a simple candy thermometer available at most supermarkets and kitchen stores will do the trick) then you can watch for a steady amount of bubbles and a fair bit of steam coming off the milk. You do not need it to be boiling. You should also be able to put your finger in without pain, but it should not be comfortable to leave it in (but make sure it is clean!!).

We now need to let the milk cool down to about 110 degrees before we add the cultures. This is because high heat will kill them (which is what we were doing to the bacteria that were already there). This is only a few degrees above body temperature, so if you do not have a thermometer then you should be able to tell by the fact that a finger dipped into it will be warmed, but not hurt by the milk. If you have ever made a bottle of baby formula or milk, it should be just about that temperature or a little above.

If you want to get the milk to cool down faster, there are three tricks you can try:

First, pouring the milk back and forth between two containers will help because it gets the air into contact with a lot more of the liquid.

Second, dividing it into a few small containers will increase the surface area; the same goes for a wider, shallower container.

Third, a metal object such as a ladle or spoon will help conduct heat out of the milk, but this is a minimal effect.

There are two good sources of good or friendly bacteria (probiotics): a package of yogurt starter, which is usually available in health food stores (although I had trouble recently finding it, but then there is no culture in my town); or a small amount of a previous batch. If you are using yogurt from a previous batch there are two things to take into account: it should not be very old (less than ten days, and preferable no more than five), and doing this too many times in a row runs the risk of other bacteria being included and possibly spoiling the batch. This last effect should be minimal if you make batches frequently, but if this occurs just start with some yogurt starter again.

Another option is to use store-bought yogurt, but bear in mind that not all commercial yogurt has live bacterial cultures. Read the label!

Also, when buying yogurt starter, make sure you do not accidentally get a different culture. There are other products, such as Kefir, that are made in the same manner, so be sure of what you are getting so you are not surprised. (Kefir is good, but it is definitely not the same thing.)

There are 4 methods that are commonly used to “incubate” the yogurt. The first is by using a store-bought machine that will keep the temperature at the optimal point (which is body temperature; after all, that is the temperature at which we expect them to thrive once they get inside of us). But if you do not have one there is no need to run out and get one right away. You can use a double boiler or submersed container in water kept at a mere simmer; a “bain marie” which is the same thing but inside the oven rather than on stove top; and you can even use a thermos! Of course, you will want a wide-mouth thermos to make removing the yogurt easier.

The temperature at this step needs to be in a range that is reasonable; too cold and there will be no growth of the bacteria, too high and the bacteria will be killed. The range is fairly wide, but if you keep the temperature steady and the same every time, then knowing the amount of time to process it will be easier. At the optimal temperature of 100 degrees I find that 4 to 6 hours is best. 4 hours makes a mild tasting yogurt, while 6 is tangier but thicker.

    Several Benefits of Homemade Yogurt

Mechanisms

Homemade yogurt is usually crammed with protein but low in calories. High-protein diets will certainly help throughout as the stress loss coming from reducing appetite along with boosting metabolism. the body has lots of energy in order to digest it, increasing the calorie burn from the day. Yogurt is usually filled with vitamins. One serving is a significant source of potassium, phosphorous, riboflavin, iodine, zinc, and vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid). Yogurt also contains B12, which maintains red blood cells and helps keep your nervous system functioning properly. “Vitamin B12 is found mostly in animal products, such as chicken and fish, so strict vegetarians can easily fall short,

Reduced Disease Risks

Women who eat yogurt often have fewer chronic-disease risk factors, which can enhance their quality of life and increase their life expectancy.

Heart Healthy

Another good reason to heart yogurt: “Consuming fat-free and low-fat yogurt may help lower your risk of developing high blood pressure. Special proteins in dairy regulate BP, and high levels of calcium, magnesium, and potassium contribute to the blood pressure-lowering effect.

Check out this post on WebMD to learn more about the health benefits of yogurt.

Craving Control

Protein, abundant in yogurt, helps increase satiety and therefore helps women control their overall calorie intake for healthy weight management.

Yogurt is less difficult to be able to digest as compared to milk.

Many people, who cannot bear with milk, either because of protein allergy or lactose intolerance, those people can enjoy yogurt. The culturing method makes yogurt more digestible than milk.

It’s loaded in calcium

One serving of homemade yogurt contains as much protein as an egg, which means yogurt can help you build a protein-rich diet. Which is the diet I live by, and has helped me lose substantial weight.  Protein is very beneficial for maintaining energy all the day.

  Besides some great health benefits, you should also try using homemade yogurt in recipes:

Yogurt works as an alternate ingredient in all sorts of recipes. Plain yogurt can take the place of cream in a pinch. You can also alternate a complementary flavor of yogurt for some of the oil or butter called for in a muffin, brownie, or cake recipe. It can replace all of the fat. Check out Bon Appetit for some helpful cooking with yogurt tips.

Homemade yogurt, when made thicker and tangier, can be used in place of sour cream for seasoning your food. I enjoy a dollop on my burritos!

Yogurt increases the intake of calcium and B-vitamins. The lactic acid in the yogurt helps to absorb in the digestion of the milk calcium, women eating yogurt regularly were actually taking with an higher variety involving calories and still dropping fat at the higher rate as compared to their counterparts.

If you want the most benefit from yogurt, prefer the low fat(made with low fat milk), plain, unsweetened kind and flavor it with fresh fruit or honey or eat it on the side of various dishes.

Yogurt is a tasty foodstuff to quench your sweet tooth. It has both stuffing enough to be able to satisfy and low-calorie enough to manage your waistline.

  So there you have it, a great recipe for making homemade yogurt and all the reasons you should make it part of your diet. What tips, tricks or advice do you have for homemade yogurt making?

The post Making Homemade Yogurt appeared first on Downtown Homestead.

Making Homemade Yogurt http://downtownhomestead.com/making-homemade-yogurt

[iammorethanapples]

gluten-free and the evolution & power of social media --> public education

In this post, I talk about my experiences eating gluten-free in the modern day, as influenced by the evolution of technology. This then leads to the rise and power of social media on the nation’s diet and eventual fate of nutrition education. 

(take picture with a GF DF food you eat) 

My mom was always extremely proud that I did not have allergies growing up. While other kids were sniffling from pollen or fiercely avoiding peanuts, I was just doing my thing and eating everything my mom fed me. It was not until my junior year in high school that life took a drastic turn. It began with itchy, red hives that covered my forearms and thighs. Blots of eczema then appeared on the lower region of my face to the back of my neck. I saw multiple doctors and they could not figure out why this was happening and only helped by prescribing steroid cream for the eczema. The most painful symptom I experienced, however, was the mental fatigue that would plague after every meal I had. It was a hazy, foggy sensation that significantly affected my ability to focus on work and even during conversations. These symptoms persisted for over half a year and I hate to say this, but my treatment was actually self-diagnosed food allergy to gluten. During that time, I was getting into YouTube videos of the health & wellbeing category. I noticed people talking about going “gluten-free” and my curiosity led to researching what this ambiguous new trend was. While I thought it was bogus that people were eating gluten-free to lose weight (obviously this would happen if you cut out bread for broccoli), I watched a particularly enticing video of a girl who went gluten-free to help with symptoms that closely matched mine. I started following this YouTuber and after a while, decided this was my issue: a gluten intolerance. I have been on a gluten-free diet since then and I am not being dramatic when I say it has solved all of the symptoms.  

I bring this story up because I was only able to figure out my allergy because of the technological evolution that has developed in the modern era. Just 10 years ago, gluten was not really a thing that you heard about. The gluten trend came up all of a sudden, became widespread due to the internet, and BAM- everyone is talking about gluten and claiming to suffer from gluten allergy/sensitivity/intolerance. 

This is where we are now- my generation largely gets our nutrition information from the internet. It is inevitable. It is beating out the unbiased, 100% guaranteed accurate information you get from websites like health.gov.  

This widespread modernization is interconnected with the evolution of how our diet has changed over time in terms of what we’re eating and our food values. Because we don’t need to be hunting and gathering like our ancestors did, we are allowed to live a sedentary lifestyle as food is easily accessible (arguably too accessible) and getting increasingly more and more accessible by the conglomerate food businesses. Now, our food values are stemmed in affordability and convenience. And because food production has moved from away from an individual domestic activity, the matter of changing the way we eat has become harder to reach because it is now largely a Systems Approach- the food industry has become a competitive monetary marketplace. Money drives everything! Food companies know people have an innate desire for sweet, salty, and umami so they know if they make their food contain one or more of those tastes, and combined with low costs, they have created a bottomless gold mine. This can contribute to why people have the misconception that eating healthy is expensive, because obviously some produce is pricier than the $1 McDonald’s menu. This is yet another issue my generation needs to fight. Fortunately, you can stop searching “how to lose weight by going gluten-free” and instead search up the multitude of videos showing you how to eat healthy on a budget. These videos establish the much-needed association the words “convenience” and “affordability” can have with health.

And as we learned, the marketplace is primarily driven by consumers. So if there’s a large enough calling for eating whole foods instead of processed, the market will shift to accommodate the change in consumer preference! This is an ongoing process that will have to come slowly as the industry is currently very successful at pushing consumers towards unhealthy foods that pose hefty health risks on the population, but make CEOs bank. The marketplace is a receptive, conniving creature: for instance, they saw the gluten-free trend soar and decided to make gluten-free foods extremely offensive to the wallet. They saw that these yuppies were willing to pay more for promises of better skin, better waistlines, and inclusiveness. People who have to eat gluten-free for actual health issues therefore have to pay the price of “gluten-free” being a current consumer preference. 

I paid $8 for this from Whole Foods :(  

But in truth, I cannot hate on that demographic of gluten-free consumers because essentially, I owe them everything in my gluten-free world: thanks to their over-the-top behavior when it comes to dining and appeasing their dietary needs, they have raised awareness of the food industry to cater to this allergy more than ever. My life is honestly so much easier now relative to if I was on this diet just 5 years ago. Here are some ways going gluten-free has been improved, and all due to the industry shifting to accommodate consumer preference:

appearance of gluten-free sections in non-health grocery stores

Yes, health stores like Whole Foods were always around before, but the amount of gluten-free products at average food stores have notably increased. 

improvement in food labeling

Whether it be on restaurant menus or food packaging, food labels are becoming clearer regarding the allergens in a food, the potential of allergens, cross-contamination, and the facility in which the food was handled. 

broadening food selection for gluten-free consumers!

This is definitely the best accommodation to come about: foods that are usually NOT gluten-free, such as General Mills Chex cereal, have been developed to be safe for my people.  

A number of chain restaurants have developed gluten-free menus, making dining out a lot more convenient. Bubba Gump, Olive Garden, and Mikuni’s (Downtown Davis) are among my favorites. 

Enjoying my gluten-free crust (and dairy-free cheese) at Blaze Pizza, Downtown Davis. The workers were also trained to switch their gloves for annoying customers like me! 

As seen by the rise of social media influence of food trends and its ability to raise the alertness of the general public, social media can be a strong asset to improving the dietary habits and nutrition education of my generation! 

As evidenced by the self-reporting poll Dr. German took in FST 100B class, my peers do not utilize great websites such as health.gov. However, because we spend (waste) an incredible amount of time on social sites like Facebook, we can use these popular platforms to spread nutrition education. Buzzfeed is an internet company that is based on sharing social news and entertainment and is widely popular among the young crowd. Its Facebook page currently has close to 10 million “likes”. As soon as Buzzfeed posts something, it will immediately appear on almost 10 million Facebook home pages. While many of their articles tend to be satirical/humorous/silly, they incorporate a lot of useful facts as well, which is a combination necessary to deliver real-life information to my generation. Consider this Buzzfeed quiz published on March 13, 2017 titled “Do You Actually Understand How Ridiculous Serving Sizes Can Be?” Underlying the humor the author is aiming for is actually useful nutrition information. Appropriate serving size is an under-estimated component of healthy eating so it is helpful that popular foods with unexpected serving sizes are revealed here (poptarts, peanut butter, iced tea, ranch dressing, etc). 

Sources like Buzzfeed that incorporate nutritional information in entertainment are actually able to capture the attention of people my age. This is the new means of approaching nutrition education. Articles like the one above can be seen as stepping stones toward raising nutrition awareness in my age group. This is more necessary than ever because of the rising prevalence of obesity and Type II diabetes. 

There are several susceptibilities that increase the risk of these diseases, including inborn errors of metabolism, metabolic state, allergens, age. It has been discovered that response to immunizations decrease with age, so the elderly population has an additional condition to worry about. In terms of allergies, it is a perplexing matter that has changed drastically over the past few decades. 60, 70 years ago food allergies were rarely heard of. Now, children are experiencing life-threatening allergies that have peanut butter banned from certain schools (but peanut butter & jelly sandwiches are essential components to childhood!). Research has gone into this revelation- why did this develop? Initially, the environment was thought to be the cause. But water and air today are actually cleaner than it has been in a century. So if environmental toxins are not causing allergies, then another another thought was microbes. Now, genetic predispositions are thought to be a major influence. Early exposure is important and timing is everything. If exposure to a potential food-borne allergen is early, which is when the immune system is being education, then food allergies are less likely. Unfortunately, this has been observed to be the opposite in the past 50 years in that high-potential children were told to hide from potential allergens. So, now the future holds lots of food allergies, calling for an even greater need for consumer education! 

As this entire post has been alluding to, food policy has changed a lot! 

Refer to the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 for example.

Before, food policy was a “criminal-based policy”. In essense, we discovered an already-present allergy or illness and then tried to cure it. Similar to the justice system’s “identify criminal and then put in jail”. Now, the food policy is opting toward a proactive policy. They are searching for ways to recognize illnesses before they occur. A UC Davis-level instance of this is a student-run clinic created in 2013. Three undergraduates recognized the need for preventive health care in the underserved community of the greater Sacramento area. They provide preventive care services through professional dietary care and mental health eduation. It is a great source to develop preventative care experience and education among our student population.  

Interested students can apply to be a RIVER advocate every year. 

On the government-level, laws are easy to write but difficult to fund. But still, an admirable mechanism of preventative care is HACCP: Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points.  

As also described in my post about a SNO food demonstration, HACCP is essentially a manual on how to ensure safety in the food supply. It analyzes the entire chain of acquisition to identify places where hazards might occur. 

When implemented correctly, HACCP will drive technology in the food supply by monitoring critical control points and identifying potential hazards before food hits distribution. As a digital real time moniter, it has the potential to dramatically change food supply safety. And it is a fundamental result of our raised standards in the modern era. 

As our standards raise, public education has to catch up. 

K-12 is relatively easy to reach in terms of nutrition education when compared to reaching the post-education demographic. However exceptional the quality and quantity of nutrition education material we provide, the population is simply not utilizing it. This is terribly concerning because ultimately, food safety is in the hands on the consumer and as a nation, we are doing an awful job at educating. 

Take the case of lactation as an evolutionary Darwinian engine of nutrition. It has been determined that milk nourishes Bifidobacterium Infantis, a bacteria in babies. So now we are put in a more complicated position. The old food safety perspective of “Kill Everything” cannot be used anymore. We need to feed the bacteria with a good diet --> which comes from the mother --> which starts with educating her with what is nutritious. 

It is alarming that issues as grand as this one are up to my generation to fix. But really, education counts at any little gesture. As the student-run clinic mentioned above exemplifies, UC Davis has a plethora of resources that students can either participate in or look to for information that covers all sectors of health and wellness! 

Student Health & Counseling Service  https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/wellness/food-and-nutrition

Map of sources all around the city of Davis to buy fruit and vegetables

hands on cooking lessons several times each quarter as administered by a trained student, cook, and registered dietitian

....And so much more!

As progressive as UC Davis is about its food program, nutrient intake is still an issue that we, along with the rest of the nation, are facing. 

Let’s focus on the positives first: 300 million people are appropriately full everyday, we are living longer than ever before, and the cost of food is reasonable. On the other hand, our current production practices are not sustainable, especially as our standards of living are continually increasing. And the worst part is the decline of our health as a nation. The processing level of production contributes a large part as to how nutrient get lost. Something good to note is that according to ABC news, nutrients are lost when fruits and vegetables are picked and continue to decrease the greater the amount of time between harvesting and consumption. 

The government is clearly working to fight for our health, as seen by USDA’s 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines that has increased its recommended fruit and vegetable intake to half your plate.  

There are also new guidelines to refer to when consuming your food:

Estimated Average Requirement: the average daily nutrient intake level estimated to meet the requirement of half the healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group.

Recommended Dietary Allowance: the average daily nutrient intake level sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly all (97 to 98 percent) healthy individuals in a particular lifestage and gender group.

Adequate Intake: a recommended average daily nutrient intake level based on observed or experimentally determined approximations or estimates of nutrient intake by a group (or groups) of apparently healthy people that are assumed to be adequate – used when an RDA cannot be determined.

 Tolerable Upper Intake Level: the highest average daily nutrient intake level likely to pose no risk of adverse health effectsto almost all individuals in the general population. As intake increases above the UL, the potential risk of adverse effectsincreases."

***NOTE: sodium is unique in that its Upper Limit (2300 mg/day) is less than its Daily Value (2400 mg/day)

Similiar to USDA’s MyPlate, UC Davis promotes the idea of “one balanced plate” in the Student Health and Wellness Center. 

At Healthy Aggies, we have an instagram page with posts ranging from...

How to eat a balanced meal of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in the Dining Commons!

We promote nutrition education by holding weekly Nutrition Trivia- students answer and have a chance to win a prize! 

We encourage students to buy fruits & vegetables that are in season and accessible at the local Farmer’s Market!  

I truly do feel blessed to study nutrition in a school so determined to provide us with the best possible resources. There is a combined effort among students such as my team at the Sustainability & Nutrition Office and our wonderful faculty and professors of promoting nutrition education. This way, reaching even one student is a platform to then reach one more student, and another, and so on.