KA 703. Nutrition Education and Behavior

The Home Economist conducted a food safety presentation for 10 individuals at the Cloudcroft United Methodist Church and 9 individuals at The Counseling Center (an organization which provides mental health services to children, adults, and families in Alamogordo). The presentations included a powerpoint presentation and educational handouts. Evaluation statistics for the presentation indicate that individuals learned the four basic principles for handling food safely: clean, separate, cook, and chill; how to sanitize cutting boards; how to clean fresh fruits and vegetables; how to properly defrost/thaw frozen foods; how to use a food thermometer; and how to store foods at home to preserve freshness and quality. Evaluation comments by participants included “I always considered my mom a clean cook, but everyone makes mistakes. It was probably a miracle I didn’t get sick from food.” and “This was a very well presented program with lots of helpful information.”

The Home Economist presented a foods and nutrition program, “Modifying Recipes for Better Health”, to 27 members of the Mayhill Extension Association Club and 11 individuals at The Counseling Center (an organization which provides mental health services to children, adults, and families in Alamogordo). The presentations included a powerpoint presentation, educational handouts, and recipe demonstrations. Evaluation statistics for the presentations indicate that 100% of participants learned how a recipe can be altered by reducing or substituting ingredients, how a recipe can be altered to reduce the amount of fat, how a recipe can be altered to reduce the amount of sugar, how a recipe can be altered to increase the amount of fiber, and how to modify a recipe so it is healthier. 98% of participants learned how a recipe can be altered to reduce the amount of sodium. Other evaluation comments by participants included “very good information and can help a person become more aware about labels to read when buying canned goods”, “very good presentation and information for everyone, but especially for those with health issures”, “Kelly’s oral presentation is easily understood. She speaks precisely and clearly (articulate).”, and “very informative information to live a more healthy lifestyle”.

In 2011, thirty individuals participated in the Kitchen Creations Diabetes School classes offered at the Exhibit Building of the Fairgrounds and the classroom/kitchen of the Extension Office. Evaluation statistics for the kitchen creations indicate that the diabetes cooking classes helped participants manage their diabetes for the reason that 94% of participants now read food labels to find the amount of carbohydrates in a food serving; 84% of participants use the 50/50 method to control the amount of carbohydrates they eat at a meal; 70% of participants use more herbs and spices to flavor foods instead of salt and fat; and 60% of participants use the Diabetes Food Guide Pyramid to plan a day’s meal and measure food portions. In addition, 98% of the participants were able to list knowledge gained as a result of participating in the Kitchen Creations Diabetes Cooking School which included how “to concentrate on total carbs (carbohydrates) instead of just sugar in labels”, “how to read labels”, and “I learned to look at the carbohydrates for all food”. When asked what participants liked the most about Kitchen Creations comments included: “Learning how to cook foods that I can have.”,:“Being able to ask questions that pertained to my family’s situation.”; “Meals that we fixed were very well planned out and were very tasty and quick and easy to prepare.”; “I enjoyed everything about the classes you have been offering- I am learning portion control.”; “Being able to cook recipes and try them. Some recipes I would have never made at home.”; “Hands on cooking and sampling the recipes- found I loved things I probably wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t been able to sample.”; “Learning new ways of cooking.”; “I learned a lot about carbs (carbohydrates), sodium, reading labels, and serving sizes.”; and “I liked the information about food labels and how to use this information to my benefit and the opportunity to prepare some dishes.”

General Nutrition
A Home Food Preservation training was presented to 20 members of the Lincoln County Garden Club. Participants gained knowledge in the area of pickling, freezer jams, and low-acid canning which is the foundation of home food preservation.
Cooking Class "Thanksgiving in a Flash" was presented to 25 residents of Lincoln County. The class gained knowledge in the area of nutrition benefits of sweet potatoes, squash, and how to increase their food dollars. A handout was developed for the participants.
Extension collaborated with local Beef Council during Ag Days for Carrizozo Schools and a presentation was given on nutritional advantages of beef and food safety of beef.
Also Extension collaborated with Lincoln County Community Health Council during the Maze of Life with a nutrition booth. The experiential maze was an interactive life-size game designed to help teens better understand the consequences of decisions. The Lincoln County Extension booth discussed the health risks of consuming energy drinks such as Red Bull, Rockstar Mountain Dew. The 8th grade classes from Lincoln County attended (200) the two day program.
Healthy snacks for children was presented to the GRADS Program in Ruidoso. A Healthy Snacks brochure was developed as a handout and healthy snacks were prepared by the students.
During the monthly EALC meetings educational nutrition programs were presented in 2010-2011: Heart Healthy Foods; Wonderful Flax-seeds; Canning from the Garden.
ICAN
During the 2010-2011 FY the ICAN Nutrition Educator recruited participants and increased nutrition education in Lincoln County. Support and supervision was provided to one ICAN Nutrition Educator by conducting staff meetings, assisting staff with programs, and evaluations. Nutrition Education classes were presented to K-4 students, in collaboration with Capitan Public Schools, Ruidoso Schools, Hondo Schools, Carrizozo Schools, and Corona Schools, after school programs, summer programs, and local Daycare facilities.
The ICAN program in 2010-2011 graduated 639 youth. Which was a 7% increase in youth graduates from 2009-2010 FY. Evaluations show that throughout Lincoln County many participants implemented new food buying practices, resulting in healthier eating and increased nutrition, as well as making food dollars stretch and increase the value of food stamps.
Adult nutrition classes were taught to 24 students of the Gavlin Choices School. In an effort to recruit adult participant’s posters, fliers and newsletters were distributed to participants of the Income Support Division, WIC, and Health Fairs.

Established the Quay County Food Protection Alliance in April. The group identified several groups in the county that would be vulnerable to a food outbreak and would be hard to contact. Several options were discussed and the group divided up research jobs to gain information on developing a way to communicate with people who do not get the radio or newspaper. The group also identified others who should be involved. The second meeting occurred in September and 5 new members joined. The group will be working the city’s new emergency notification system which will e-mail, text, and call people when there is an emergency. The next step will be to develop protocol procedures, so that the committee is ready and knows what to do if there is an emergency.

Earth Day activities for the Quay County Schools are coordinated by NRCS and revolve around an outdoor classroom that has kivas for presentations, a variety of trees, someday a small pond if we have irrigation water or rain, and hopefully some wildlife. All schools in Quay County participate along with Ft Sumner. The presentations typically focus on Nature or wildlife. The kids rotate by classes through 10 stations. At each station they have a 15 minute presentation. The presenters present 20 times during the day. Typically the 4-H agent takes some animals to the classroom and discusses animal safety. This year the 4-H Agent and Home Economist teamed up to present a totally different program. The program was a skit where the 4-H agent served as a talk show host who could not concentrate on his interview because his grandmother was very sick and he did not know what had caused it. The Home Economist was the interviewee who was going to talk about Food Science, but instead ends up interviewing the talk show host about events leading up to grandma getting sick and describing how bacteria grows on food. The skit was not scripted, but it always ended with the determination that grandma had food poisoning. The kids were brought into the skit as much as possible based on their age. During the presentation the kids learned about the proper ways to thaw meat, washing hands before and after handling food, not leaving food out for more than two hours, and making sure hamburger is cooked well done. Six Hundred and Eighty-two students, parents, and teachers stopped at this station and many reported that they enjoyed the food safety presentation the best. The next week while the 4-H agent was at Tucumcari Schools giving a presentation on a different topic, several asked him how his grandmother was. Also during the presentation, many of the kindergarteners and 1st graders informed us that Miss Alice (Our ICAN educator) taught them to wash their hands while singing a song.

Seventy-two people attended our annual Agriculture and Home Economics Seminar. The format was changed this year to a program that focused on food safety of our food supply. The key note speaker discussed how fast a food borne illness can travel through the food supply. Other speakers talked about protecting ourselves against food borne illnesses and other health scares and the new farm bill and how that will affect the food we buy. On the agriculture side the speakers talked about good farming and ranching practices to insure a safe food supply.

During the visits to the Extension Clubs in February, discussed with Twenty-nine people suggestions for keeping food safe during an emergency. All types of issues were discussed from freezer safety to food damaged by heat from a fire. What to do when out of electricity and of course rotating food in an emergency kit. Food and refrigerator thermometers were distributed with information on cooking temperatures and food safety.

Presented a program to the Tucumcari High School Health Classes on Food Safety. The Plan had been to use the Dr. Quest videos with a discussion, but the schools internet was not strong enough and the videos would not stream properly. So the improvised program became a discussion of what food borne illnesses they had heard about in the media and what were the real causes and then a discussion of home food safety around the 4 areas of clean, separate, cook and chill. A real attention grabber was the meat samples provided by agro-guard. Participants learned at least one thing in each of the 4 areas to keep them safe from food borne illnesses. There were 64 youth in 4 classes.

Thirteen youth attended 4-H Home Economics Fun Night during which one of the activities before cooking was a presentation on Food Safety in the Kitchen. Thirteen attended and participated in a discussion and activity sheets from the FightBac program. They learned about the temperature zone, cooking foods until done, and about the 4 principals of Fightbac: clean, separate, cook, and chill.