Nutrition Policy Institute Director Dr. Lorrene Ritchie presents at the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior, SNEB, 2024 international conference. This year's international conference, themed “Understanding Foodways: Learning, Growing, and Sustaining,” will highlight the reasons why we eat the foods we eat and the impacts of those choices on ourselves and our communities. The SNEB conference takes place at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and through a virtual livestream from July 29th through August 1st, 2024. Lorrene Ritchie participates in a session on August 1, 3:30-4:30 p.m. ET titled “Food Waste Reduction Efforts: The Intersection of Food Ways, Climate Change, and Human Health,” along with Sara Elkbakib and Yu Meng. Additionally, Ritchie presents a poster on July 31, 4:30-5:30 p.m. ET titled “Boosting the Benefits of WIC: Exploring Participant Perspectives from the 2023 Multi-State WIC Survey;” co-authored by NPI's Danielle Lee and Celeste Felix as well as Georgia Machell, and Loan Kim. Ritchie is one member of the team for an additional poster presentation on July 31, 4:30-5:30 p.m. EST titled “Child and Adult Care Food Program Meal Reimbursement Rates and Program Participation by Family Child Care Homes in California,” presented by Susana Matias of UC Berkeley's Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology Department, and co-authored by NPI's Danielle Lee, Kassandra Bacon, and Celeste Felix, and CACFP Roundtable's Samantha Kay-Daleiden Marshall and Elyse Homel Vitale. Furthermore, Ritchie gives an oral presentation on July 31, 2:30-3:15 p.m. ET titled “Impact of Increased Child and Adult Care Food Program Reimbursement Rates for Family Child Care Home Providers in California,” co-authored by NPI's Danielle Lee, Kassandra Bacon, and Celeste Felix, CACFP Roundtable's Samantha Kay-Daleiden Marshall and Elyse Homel Vitale, and UC Berkeley's Susana Matias. Lastly, Ritchie speaks on July 31, 3:30-4:30 p.m. ET and a subsequent invited poster presentation on August 1, 4:30-5:30 p.m. ET titled “Transition to freshly prepared school meals: impact of meal appeal student participation, intake, food and packaging waste & school finance,” co-authored by NPI's Celeste Felix, Danielle Lee, and Wendi Gosliner, as well as UC Berkeley School of Public Health's Hannah Thompson, Caroline Nguyen, and Kris Madsen.
Wendi Gosliner from the Nutrition Policy Institute discussed efforts to enhance population health and nutrition, focusing on eliminating disparities and improving federal food programs in a recent If I Could Change One Thing health policy podcast episode. Highlighting policy amendments during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gosliner emphasized the impact on food access, particularly for SNAP, WIC, school meal programs, and expansion of the Child Tax Credit. Stressing the importance of tackling food insecurity and reducing waste, she called for comprehensive interventions in federal nutrition programs. “When we think about growing food, and all of the inputs that are needed to grow food—the energy, the water, the soil, the human labor, the money to harvest it and transport it— then it gets to us, we buy it, we store it, and then we often throw it away," said Gosliner. "The amount of resources that's wasted with each food item that is thrown away is immense. And then not only that, but food, when it's decomposing in landfills, creates methane, which is a greenhouse gas contributor all on its own. So, for so many reasons, having us throwing away a lot of food is incredibly costly.” Gosliner, NPI's director of food policy research and translation, shared insights with co-hosts James Romine and Rocio Flores in season eight, episode one of the podcast. The podcast is produced by the San Diego State University, School of Public Health. Listen online.
Nutrition Policy's Institute's Celeste Felix will present at the 2023 California Resource and Recovery Association Conference about NPI's latest project evaluating how a large, urban school districts' transition to scratch cooking and using reusable serviceware can impact students' dietary intake and environmental sustainability. The conference is hosted by California's largest statewide recycling association and takes place in Burlingame, CA August 13-16, and Celeste will be co-presenting with Ben Schleifer from the Center for Environmental Health and Fremont Unified School District's recycling coordinator, Stephanie Willits on August 15 from 2:45 to 4:15 p.m. Ben, Stephanie, and Celeste will be highlighting the school districts' reusable tray and cutlery pilot project, which is part of a larger study, “Transition to Freshly-Prepared School Meals: Impacts on Meal Appeal, Student Participation, Intake, Food and Packaging Waste & School Finances,” funded by the US Department of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, grant number 2020-68015-30736. This study is conducted by NPI, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and FUSD in partnership with the Center for Environmental Health and StopWaste.