Fresh Focus

Would you be interested in watching a cooking class demo while being able to be sit in your own kitchen and have the opportunity to cook along with the instructor? That is exactly what the VA Healthy Teaching Kitchen classes involve!   

Healthy Teaching Kitchens aim to improve health by teaching Veterans and their families how to make healthy food choices by showing them how to prepare foods. Participating in a class or seeing your local VA Dietitian can help assist you in planning healthy meals. Check with your local VA for more details on available local classes.  

This years theme “Celebrate a World of Flavors” encourages everyone to include healthy meals across all cultures and cuisines.  Listen in where RDNs on episode 60 of Fresh Focus provide several easy tips to help you in meal planning today.   

Listen in on this episode of Fresh Focus, where VA Dietitian, Dr. Joel Hamilton talks all about how to spice up your diet with using an ingredient that you already have on hand, a potato! Why potatoes? Potatoes are inexpensive and generally accessible.

Learning several cooking tips using something simple as a potato can actually help build our confidence in the kitchen, and motivate us into trying our hand at all different kinds of recipes and unique items. They are also fairly neutral in taste and can allow you to practice multiple cooking techniques and seasoning combinations.    

Be sure to visit the Healthy Teaching Kitchen YouTube Channel to watch video recipes.

March is a whole month dedicated to promote the profession of Nutrition Services as well as delivering nutrition education to the public. A Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) can help you improve your overall health and wellness.

This year, for National Nutrition Month®, the team at Fresh Focus Podcast, welcome back Yaqutullah Ibraheem Muhammad, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist from the Atlanta VAHCS, Arcadia Primary Care Women’s Wellness Clinic to discuss tips on embracing cultural cuisines and ways you can diversify your healthy plate. Find out fun recipes to try and easy ways to experiment with new flavors. 

It’s common to see misinformation about nutrition. Science is complicated and scientific research can be difficult to critically evaluate. Especially for nutrition, many aspects of the wellness industry are unregulated such as supplements and supplement companies. With all the confusing nutrition information out there, how do we know which experts to trust or how to tell a credible source from a non-credible source? 

VA Dietitian Nutritionist Erin Gobeille in Fresh Focus episode #57 reminds us that a good place to start is information written by experts in the field. Check for authors with the MD, PhD, or RD/RDN credentials. Look at the authors qualifications. Ideally they should be educated in the field of nutrition and dietetics and preferably hold a degree from accredited university, such as a registered dietitian. You can also check to see if they belong to a credible nutrition organization like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Have you ever seen a VA Dietitian? If not, you might be wondering what to ask once you are in the office. From what’s the best way to lose weight, what to eat when away from our homes, to how much sodium is too much are daily conversations in our specialty. Bethany, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist from the Louis A Johnson VA , joins Fresh Focus on episode #56 where she answers the most common questions she gets asked by Veterans and their family members.    

March is National Nutrition Month® and is a chance to celebrate eating healthy. National Registered Dietitian Nutritionist day is also in March and is a chance to showcase dietitians as the food and nutrition experts. Each year we celebrate with a new theme and for 2022 the theme is “Celebrate a world of Flavors.” This means diversifying our food choices and being open to new flavors, cuisines and eating experiences. 

It is possible to take what we like from different global dietary patterns and incorporate them into our lives in healthy, individualized ways. We can still have our own personal likes and dislikes while taking what we enjoy from different dietary perspectives. In episode #55, Dietitian Nutritionist Sara Peidle breaks down the benefits of choosing foods from all corners of the globe.

We are back with the sixth and final episode of the Fresh Focus podcast’s Myth Busters series. We’ve explored so many topics over the course of the past five episodes- from carbohydrates, to metabolism, to gluten, dairy, the scale, and protein in vegetarian diets. We are rounding out the series with a myth that is a big misconception when people come into the world of nutrition- and that is in order to be healthy, it is necessary to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time.

You heard that right! The fact that you need to eat perfectly is entirely a myth. It’s just not true. And on top of that, there isn’t anybody who expects you to eat perfectly healthy all the time- not even dietitians or dietetic interns do. After all, we are all human and we all have foods that we absolutely love that may not be as nutrient dense.

When you put pressure on yourself to eat absolutely perfectly and tell yourself you can never have, say, pizza, you are more likely than not setting yourself up to crave those foods that you deem off limits- even more often than you would otherwise. This concept is explained in psychology as the Ironic Process Theory, first theorized by Daniel Wegner in 1987. This episode will walk you through an exercise in Ironic Process Theory and talk more about how it applies to nutrition.

While it is undeniable that food is an important part of health, it’s also important to remember that our health is made up of many different dimensions- including mental health, emotional health, intellectual health, and more. Choosing foods that fuel your soul every so often may be just as important as choosing foods that fuel your body.

If this episode strikes a chord with you, go ahead and ask your registered dietitian to talk to you about the concept of intuitive eating. It may be just right for you!

Gluten and dairy and grains, oh my! In this episode of the Fresh Focus podcast’s Myth Busters series, our host Megan Rivenburg, MS, former dietetic intern at the Bay Pines VA talks all about the ever so prevalent myths about gluten, dairy, gluten-free, and dairy-free diets.

            Have you ever heard someone say they are cutting out gluten for health reasons? This episode talks all about whether or not it really is healthier to eat gluten free. The short answer? It’s not! It’s not necessary to cut out gluten unless you are someone who has Celiac disease or otherwise has a sensitivity to gluten. 

            Cutting it out for someone who doesn’t need to is not objectively any healthier. All it does is cut out a great source of fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals, and make the grocery bill a little bit steeper.

            When it comes to dairy, listen in as we explore what it means to be lactose intolerant, whether or not it’s okay to eat dairy when lactose intolerant, and more. This episode will leave you equipped with information regarding the myth that dairy is inflammatory, taken straight from the research.

            The bottom line is that not only is dairy not shown to be inflammatory (unless you are allergic), but it actually may even have an anti-inflammatory effect. 

            There are so many fad diets out there that cut out food groups unnecessarily, when those food groups are really amazing sources of nutrition. This episode will leave you with the research-backed facts so that you can make your own informed decision regarding whether or not you choose to consume gluten and/ or dairy.

            We hope you enjoy listening to this episode. Join us next time for one last myth busting episode where we will break down one more myth into bite-sized (pun intended!) pieces for you.

It seems like in the healthcare setting we always hear “losing weight is healthy” and “gaining weight is unhealthy.” It seems like there is this thought that the best predictor of if someone is healthy is their weight and what number shows up on the scale.

But the thing is, there are so many factors that come into play when it comes to the number on the scale. So many different things can impact it and make it change week to week or even day to day- whether it be fluid status, whether or not you’ve gone to the bathroom, or anything else.

Throughout this episode of the Myth Busters series on the Fresh Focus podcast, we dive into the many myths surrounding the scale as well as things the scale can definitely be useful for, and things the scale is not really useful for at all.

The scale can’t tell you anything about body composition. In other words, the scale can’t tell the difference between muscle, fat, water, bone, organs, etc. Since muscle weighs more than fat does, someone who is muscular is going to weigh more. Similarly, someone who has been going to the gym and feels and looks great may not even see a change on the scale.

Additionally, a number that quantifies how much gravitational pull we have towards the earth can’t tell us anything about our health. And this is why using the scale as a sole indicator of health can be a problem. The scale doesn’t know anything about your labs, your blood pressure, your resting heart rate, your blood sugar levels, or anything else. There are so many ways that we can measure progress in health improvement without using a scale.

If you find yourself wanting to weigh yourself, that’s totally fine! This episode will give you some tangible tips for weighing yourself more accurately without some of the factors that contribute to fluctuations. But if you get anything out of this episode, walk away from it knowing that the scale will never be able to tell you the full picture, and will never be able to tell you anything about your worth as a human being.

This episode is another episode in the Fresh Focus podcast’s Myth Busters series, where we are breaking down common nutrition myths and topics that seem to get spun by the media. This series’ hope is to give you an evidence-based place to go back to in between visits with your registered dietitian in order to get answers to your burning nutrition questions. 

In this episode we talk all about metabolism. We talk about how our bodies need food each day to fuel activities that you don’t even think about- such as organs functioning. We don’t think about our kidneys or liver working, but they are always working, and require energy to do so! 

The episode dives into foods that are considered “metabolism boosters,” and talks about which of these foods have a little bit of a more sound scientific backing and which of these foods just simply do not. However, even the foods that have a little bit more of a backing are not going to increase metabolism by a considerable amount. 

The episode ends by talking about one tried and true way to actually increase the amount of energy you expend each day- and that is exercise. Not only does exercise in the moment burn energy, but it also helps you to build up lean muscle tissue. One pound of muscle requires more energy to maintain on a daily basis than one pound of fat does, which means that as your muscle mass increases, so does your resting metabolic rate.

If you are looking to start up an exercise program and want to make sure you do so safely, make sure you consult your healthcare team first. 

If exercise accountability is what you’re looking for, you can always look into VA programs such as MOVE!, where you can meet individuals with similar health goals and keep each other accountable.