From 2009 to 2010, the Community Food Security Coalition advocated for more federal support and funding for farm-to-school programs as Congress considered reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act. Farm-to-school initiatives aim to improve the quality and healthfulness of student meals through the inclusion of more fresh fruits and vegetables provided…

Objective: To investigate the relationship between knowledge about a healthy diet and the actual food consumption habits of adolescents. Design: A survey of several food-related aspects applied to a representative sample of adolescents. Setting: One thousand, six hundred and sixty three individuals aged 11 to 18 from 40 schools randomly selected…

This open-ended practical series titled "Molecular Identification of Unknown Food Bacteria" which extended over a 6-week period was designed with the aims of giving students an opportunity to gain an understanding of naturally occurring food bacteria and skills in contemporary molecular methods using real food samples. The students first isolated…

Purpose/Objectives: In 2010, a large urban school district implemented a district-wide school wellness policy that addressed childhood obesity by requiring schools to increase health and physical education contact hours for students and to improve the nutritional standards of school meals. Schools were required to serve a different fruit and…

Concern about young families' ability to cope with rising food prices resulted in creating Spend Smart. Eat Smart (SSES), a website focused on budget-friendly nutrition information for limited resource audiences (LRA). SSES was redesigned using LRAs needs and preferences to increase use by LRAs. SSES usage increased after it was revised to…

Schools that serve meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) are required to maintain proper sanitation and health standards in conformance with all applicable State and local laws and regulations. In addition, schools are required to obtain two school food safety inspections per school year, which are…

From popular movies to New York Times bestsellers, organic food is widely acknowledged to be of growing importance. Many community college students are asking: How is organic food different from everything else in the grocery store? What impact does farming have on the environment? How safe is our food? A survey of reference works introduces…

Because consumer opinions to an increasing extent affect the structure and management of the U.S. food system, it is important for social scientists to accurately model consumer trust in this system so they can better understand and anticipate public responses to existing or proposed food-related regulatory policies and facilitate effective…

Children's ability to identify common plants is a necessary prerequisite for learning botany. However, recent work has shown that children lack positive attitudes toward plants and are unable to identify them. We examined children's (aged 10-17) ability to discriminate between common toxic and non-toxic plants and their mature fruits presented in…

Foodborne illness and food safety risks pose health threats to everyone, including international college students who live in the United States and encounter new or unfamiliar foods. This study assessed the prevalence of self-reported foodborne illness among international college students by cultural regions and length of time in the United…

Oregon State Univ. has offered FST 102 "Maraschino Cherry" as a 1-credit orientation course since 1994. The maraschino cherry serves as a vehicle from which faculty give their disciplinary perspective, for example, the chemistry of the maraschino cherry, processing unit operations, microbiology and food safety, food law, sensory…

The nutritional status and mealtime performance among a group of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were examined before and after admission to an intensive feeding day-treatment program. Treatment involved escape extinction, reinforcement, and stimulus fading procedures. Outcomes focused on dietary diversity and mealtime performance,…

Teens in limited-resource communities face challenges to healthy eating. Many youths lack food preparation skills and have limited access to ingredients needed to prepare healthy foods at home. University of Maryland Extension offered healthy food preparation lessons to teen participants of a popular weekly electronic gaming program in a Baltimore…

Background: The purpose of this study was to review documented outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness in schools, published in the last 10 years, to identify etiology, mode of transmission, the number of children affected, morbidity and mortality patterns, and interventions for control and prevention. Methods: Searches of electronic databases,…

Objective: To develop and assess reliability and validity of the Nutrition, Food Safety, and Physical Activity Checklist to measure nutrition, food safety, and physical activity practices among adult Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) and Food Stamp Nutrition Education program (FSNE) participants. Methods: Test-retest…