RDs Unite at Legislative Day

On February 13, 2013 I attended my first Legislative Day in Downtown Annapolis. For those of you that don’t know, Legislative Day is an annual event hosted by the Maryland Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics (MAND). For 2 CEUs, you can learn how to effectively communicate with legislators, about current bills impacting your profession, and become an advocate for dietetics in the state of Maryland. Unfortunately, as an intern I’m not able to receive the CEUs just yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

At first, I didn’t know what to expect and was a bit nervous, as I’m not exactly “politically savvy.” However, you don’t need a background in politics to participate in the day’s events. In fact, the day began with speeches from Senator John Astle, and MAND’s lobbyist, Dan Doherty. They provided tips and suggestions for effectively communicating with legislators and gave an overview of the regulatory process from an insider’s point of view.

After learning how to communicate with legislators, it was time to learn about our “talking points,” or the bills impacting nutrition professionals. This was my favorite part of the day, as it highlighted the specific issues relevant to our profession and prepared us for the next part of the day—meeting with legislators.

Finally, it was time to put what we’d learned into practice. So we formed our designated groups and marched to the Senate House for our first appointment. Unfortunately, the senator was unavailable, but we were able to express our concerns to a member of their staff. The rest of the appointments continued without a hitch, and overall I feel that the legislator’s and their staff were very receptive to our concerns. I found this experience to be very empowering and I hope to attend next year’s Legislative Day. To conclude, I’ll leave you with some information regarding two bills I feel strongly about. 

1. Senate Bill 738 State Board of Physicians – Naturopathic Doctors

Overview	MAND Position	My Opinion
Adds Naturopathic Doctors the State Board of Physicians, & allows them to provide services, such as MNT.	Want “nutrition,” & “dietetics” removed from bill. Otherwise no position.	I agree with MAND, in that “dietetics,” directly conflicts with Registered Dietitians (copyrighted term).

 2. House Bill 1121 Health Occupations Dental Hygienists-Community Health & Wellness Acts

Overview	MAND Position	My Opinion
Allows dental hygienists to provide services including nutrition counseling at Community Health Centers.	Would support, only requests “nutrition counseling” be removed from the bill. But supports them providing oral health education.	I agree with MAND, but feel that the entire line “diet & nutritional counseling,” be removed. Also, I do not understand why they need to take weights, heights, & bp.

What do you think of these bills? 

MyPlate: What's on Your Plate?

By Nikki Bolduc

I am currently completing a 5-week rotation at the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP), which is an organization within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).  MyPlate is an icon that was created by CNPP in 2011 to help promote messages based on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  

I have been immersed in a variety of exciting projects at CNPP, all of which have been centered on promoting the health messages of MyPlate.  Not until I started my rotation at CNPP did I really take a good look into the ChooseMyPlate.gov website and all it has to offer. There are a variety of tools and resources available for dietitians to utilize. 

Below are a couple of my favorite tools/resources that dietitians can take advantage of:

• SuperTracker:  SuperTracker is a tool that can be used by anyone, including dietitians.  It is a free resource that helps you track your daily caloric intake and physical activity.  Users learn how many calories they should consume daily, what nutrients they consumed during past meals, tips to meet their individual goals and specific details about their food behaviors via printable reports.
• MyPlate 10 Tips Educational Series:  CNPP has developed several one-page PDF’s that provide  10 tips on topic such as adding more vegetables into your diet, building a healthy meal, smart shopping for fruits and veggies, and much more!
• MyPlate Food Groups Overview:  Dietitians can direct their clients to the MyPlate food groups section of the website for a comprehensive review of each food group on the MyPlate image.  Clients will learn which foods are considered healthy options within each group, the appropriate portion size, health benefits as well as tips to increase their consumption of these foods. 

MyPlate is not a typical diet plan, in which case I mean that it is not a “fad diet.”   ChooseMyPlate.gov is committed to providing long-term health guidance for people to successfully incorporate healthy eating into their lifestyle.  As a dietetic intern, it is great to know that such advice is so accessible.  I encourage you to check out all it has to offer.  

We Love the Company

Elementary and middle schools students at Baltimore's Baybrook Middle School in Child First Authority's After-School Program read "We Love the Company".  This is part of the University of Maryland Extension (UME)'s  Maryland Food Supplement Nutrition Education (FSNE) "Read for Health" curriculum.

In this book we learned about the importance of eating together and the value of having good manners.  While reading the book we all joined in whenever we had a line stating "We Love the Company".  We practiced placing napkins in our lap and not fidgeting in our chair, the latter is really hard.  But, "we (do) love company" and shared with each other our favorite persons to visit -- our family.  After our teacher read the book once, we listened to the book's song and recording that included another reading of the book.  We wiggled to the rhythm of the song.

The book focuses on the importance of eating meals with your friends and family.  Studies have shown that families that eat together typically have a healthier diet by eating more fruits and vegetables, at lower risk for overweight/obesity, have children who do better in school, develop self-esteem/social skills and are less likely to use drugs and alcohol.

After we read our book we made homemade coleslaw.  Several of our older children looked at the fresh minced cabbage and commented "nasty".  But then we set to work with our older members cutting carrots and apples into very small pieces to add to our pre-shredded cabbage along with golden yellow raisins.  When we added a little coleslaw dressing it was very good with most of the older children and several of our younger children requesting smaller second servings.  We decided if we made this recipe again at our homes -- we might add small tomatoes, grapes, or brown raisins.  We also practiced our thank you(s) and helped our teacher with clean up -- as we had gotten a few carrots on the floor when cutting.


Posted on behalf of Phyllis McShane

Kosher Dining: Traditions in Modern Food Service

    Today we attended Sodexo's Joint Class Day, hosted by Hebrew Home of Greater Washington.  This is a nursing home facility that caters to the Jewish population by serving completely kosher meals.

    Before today, I thought I understood what it meant to be kosher, but I realized I only knew the basics.  Even if I don't go into working in a kosher kitchen, I still think it is valuable to understand the eating patterns of different cultures and religions.  Here is an overview of the rules that apply to kosher dining.

#1: Don't mix dairy and meat.

    In any given meal, these two food groups should never exist together.  The meat designation includes poultry, while the dairy group extends to cheese, yogurt, butter, and any other dairy product.  You will never see a cheeseburger in this dining room.
    Beyond separating these foods at meal times, they cannot be mixed during storage or preparation.  As a result, the kitchen is split with two of everything; one for dairy preparation and another for the meat.  To clearly separate the two, each kitchen was color coded, blue for dairy and red for meat.  This included tags on utensils, pots and pans, dishes, silverware, and even the tiling fit into the color scheme.  This prevents any accidental crossing, and keeps the kitchen kosher.

#2: Restricted Foods

You may be familiar with the restriction of pork, but did you know that camel, rabbit, rodents, and reptiles are also prohibited?  Granted, these foods may not come up frequently in our modern day society, but the rule is that you may only consume animals that, "chew cud and have cloven hooves".  Shelfish, birds of prey and their eggs are also forbidden.

 #3: Butchering and Processing

    All butchering must be performed by Shochet- a butcher who is devout and knowledgeable in Jewish law.  Slaughtering animals is intended to cause as little pain and suffering to the animal as possible.  The Shochet must also quickly drain all blood and remove blood vessels, nerves, and fat.  These practices may not be routine in non-kosher meats so it results in a different taste. 
   After an animal is slaughtered, it must go through the processes of kashering- soaking and salting the beef to remove all blood.

#4: Proper Supervision

    The final piece to this operation is the Mashgiach, a Jewish religious leader that specializes in Jewish dietary law.  This figure oversees all production, has final approval on foods before they are used and is in charge of turning on all equipment including burners, ovens, and other appliances.

    After today, I definitely feel that I have a greater understanding for the amount of effort that goes into preparing a kosher meal.  These traditions date back to the Torah, and it is fascinating to see the commitment to them that still alive and well today. 

A Refresher in Motivational Interviewing

I am currently on my final week at Food & Friends, an organization that provides meals, groceries, and nutritional counseling to individuals living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-threatening illnesses in the DC metropolitan community. During my time, I have been fortunate to work alongside an incredible team of registered dietitians. These dietitians have a variety of responsibilities including nutritional assessments, educations, community classes, kitchen inspections, quality control, and more. While at Food & Friends, I have seen and assisted with many of their tasks.

Conducting nutritional assessments in the community was particularly exciting for me. For this, we traveled to the client's house, introduced ourselves, discussed the program, and completed an assessment. During the assessment, I was excited to see the use of motivational interviewing, which is a technique I learned a great deal about during my undergraduate studies. During the assessment I saw just how useful these skills are when working with clients. For anyone unfamiliar with motivational interviewing, it can be defined as a client-centered counseling technique used to elicit behavior change. The four main techniques involved in motivational interviewing are OARS or open-ended questions, affirmation, reflective listening, and summaries. Below is a brief example of each.

· Open-ended questions
         Ask questions such as
                “Tell me about…” or “Can you tell me about…?
                “What else?”

· Affirmation
         Promote and pay more attention to change/positive talk than
         to resistance talk

· Reflective listening
         Paraphrase what the client is saying or expressing, focusing
         primarily on the positive talk

· Summaries
         Emphasize the costs and benefits of behavior changes
         Discuss client’s current status in relation to client’s goals

Practicing and reviewing these techniques and other motivational interviewing skills regularly is important for dietitians in all areas of practice. A great way to review and practice these skills may be with a friend, spouse, or even other dietitians. The dietitians at Food & Friends devote a small section of their weekly staff meeting to reviewing one tip on nutritional counseling. This week, Margery and I are looking forward to presenting another important tip during their meeting. We are even planning on acting out a mini scenario for better clarity and possibly for a little fun!

A Seemingly Unusual Place for a Dietitian

In school, we were always taught that the "bread and butter" of RD's is in the clinical setting.  Heading up the clinical nutrition department and working one on one with patients and their families.  Foodservice was probably the one other place I knew dietitians found careers.  When entering this internship, I was intrigued that the focus was on information technology and nutrition informatics.  RD's in technology?  How'd that work?  I wasn't really sure and very eager to get into my "IT" rotations to see RD's in action.

My two information technology rotations were at the International Food and Information Council (IFIC) and the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) under the USDA.  Drastically different, both of these unique work places featured RD's working with information technology, nutrition informatics and social media campaigns.  It was an amazing opportunity see this out-of-the-box career path for dietitians.  I think it was a unique opportunity that the UMD internship was able to provide us.

IFIC was a really fun place to work.  We were there for a total of 3 weeks and spent a lot of time learning how the RD's on staff worked with the food industry to promote sound nutrition knowledge and facts to the public.  They relied heavily on social media and a lot of marketing and PR techniques to promote the nutrition information.  I was able to help them write blogs, create graphics and research social media campaigns.  The second rotation was (and currently I'm still here) at CNPP.  This rotation is very fun because I get to work at a government facility and be able to participate with the MyPlate project!  It's a great to really feel like you're working on and adding to projects that go out nationally to the public.  Much of the work done at CNPP is "top secret" and I can't divulge everything that I get to do.  But I can promise you this, it's a very cool opportunity for dietitians!

Overall, both of these rotations have exposed me to really unique career opportunities for dietitians.  It might not be something you think you'll be interested in, but once you see how passionate these dietitians are about educating the public you'll get hooked!  I love being able to work with these "nutrition experts" and feel confident in the information and facts they promote to the public.  It's great to feel like you're helping out our country in this very unique way.  I'm thoroughly enjoying these weeks and will update you on the remainder of my rotations on my next post!