Oh hello there! Don't mind us, we are just eating our calcium and vitamin C fortified, fat free 9 grain whole wheat bread. You may be wondering why we didn't just choose the traditional white wonder bread, well, it is because we just had a two week long nutrition class with none other than the fabulous Dr. Jean Harvey-Berino.
After making it through two weeks out in the fields for our farming systems class, a week in the kitchen during cooking class and a week examining food culture, the dieticians glory days finally arrived. Our first assignment was to use the USDA's newly designed interactive food pyramid to evaluate a 24-hour period of our food consumption. We used the results to transition into a lively discussion of similarities and differences between the government health guidelines of the United States and Mexico.
From there we moved onto a study of the "Nutrition Transition", the emergence of malnutrition ensuing not merely from a need for food, but the need for high-quality nourishment. It is marked by increased consumption of unhealthy foods as well as high rates of obesity in places of low income. We visited a community health clinic in San Mateo which was involved in (among other things) the treatment of conditions linked to the nutrition transition such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
On Friday, we had an intense conversation about health among migrant farm workers in Vermont with the program assistant Chris Urban. Unbeknownst to us, many of the dairy farms in Vermont rely on migrant laborers from rural Oaxaca, and other poor southern Mexican states. Their eating habits change to consuming much more meat, processed/packaged foods and sodas. Many other things effect their mental and physical health; culture shock, poor living conditions, lack of physical labor (mechanized dairy production) and lack of needed medical attention. A few students hope to do some volunteer work with migrants when back in Vermont.
We went of field trips for our final two classes. We got up with the sun on Tuesday to visit a community development program in the hills near the city where nutrition deficiency (especially anemia) and obesity coexist together. They aimed to improve nutrition by feeding children healthy food and teaching them the health benefits of everything on their plate. On Wednesday we visited a center that helps communities grow amaranth, which provides 70% of needed nutrients in a diet and is very high is protein.
It's been an incredible two weeks learning with Jean! Now step away from the Coke. I repeat. Step away from the Coke.
- Kristof and Jake
