The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has recognized March as the month to celebrate the importance of making nutritious food choices and leading an active lifestyle. This year’s National Nutrition Month® theme is “Put Your Best Fork Forward”, which reminds us that we hold the power to make healthy changes in our lives.
The Food Bank’s nutrition education classes help empower our clients by teaching them the skills needed to make healthy changes in their diet and lifestyle. The nutrition team adapts lesson materials and recipes to meet the interest and needs of our clients.
During a class taught at the Self Help Advocacy Center, the students decided that they wanted to make a spinach and citrus salad, which contains grapefruit. The fruit has been found to interact with many prescription drugs, and several class participants were concerned about using it in the recipe.
Our Bilingual Nutrition Educator, Arely Torres, substituted cara cara oranges for the grapefruit, which are similar in color. Everyone was able to enjoy the recipe and was happy to learn about a new type of orange that they could eat instead of grapefruit. One of the class participants, Donna, said she is always trying to find healthy alternatives to store bought salad dressings, and was happy to learn, through this recipe, that she could use the natural juices from the citrus fruits with a little bit of olive oil to create her own.
Our mission at the Food Bank is to nourish hungry people and lead the community in ending hunger. Through our nutrition education classes, we are able to nourish the community with nutrition knowledge and empower clients to make healthy life choices. This is our way to “put our best fork forward” for Central Texans.
For more information or to schedule a class, contact Mary Agnew, nutrition education manager, at (512) 684-2502 or email choices@austinfoodbank.org.
