KinderCare announces plan to increase access and affordability of healthy food for all children

In support of today’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, KinderCare Learning Companies today announced its plan to help increase access and affordability to vegetables and fruits for all children nationwide. KinderCare is collaborating with its longstanding partner, Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), and the CDC Foundation. The organizations will work together to provide children and their families with the resources they need to access healthy foods they need to live well.

“As a leader in early childhood education and care, we at KinderCare have had a longstanding commitment to supporting children’s health and wellness. We believe it’s our responsibility to set the standard for the entire child care sector,” said Tom Wyatt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of KinderCare. “We’re proud of our continued partnership with the PHA and to be a part of today’s event. We’re honored to join the CDC Foundation and the White

Read more →

How The Food Trust is working to create healthy eating programs in Camden

By the time Kameron Harmon drove up, he had only 15 minutes to get his quick nutrition lesson, grab his giveaway, and use his coupon for healthy food at the 700 Pine Street Store in Camden.

For almost 10 years, The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative (HCSI) and Heart Smarts Program have been working to transform corner stores, often disparaged as a nutritional wastelands, into community health hubs by combining training, equipment and marketing materials for owners with regular nutrition education and incentives for shoppers. Almost 3,400 participants took the nutrition lessons between August 2021 and June 2022.

“The real important thing is it is real in-person interactions,” explained Edgardo Bones, HCSI project manager. “We meet them regularly where they are at and start to develop relationship with people. That’s important, too, because it elevates the conversation.”

Many of the shoppers who came to the store, such as Harmon,

Read more →

Grocery Stores Compete to Get Healthy Food Spend

As food and beverage businesses announce their participation in the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health Wednesday (Sept. 28), many are using the opportunity to unveil not only environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives, as one might expect, but also features to drive customer acquisition and loyalty with nutrition-minded shoppers.

These efforts come amid a years-long trend towards wellness-motivated shopping, especially among millennial and gen Z consumers. Target-owned delivery service Shipt, for one, announced that it will “update” its marketplace to make it easier for consumers to shop for groceries according to their dietary needs and preferences.

See also: Shipt Targets Healthy Meals as Part of White House Hunger Conference

The announcement followed Shipt’s July 2021 launch of a dietary preferences feature, enabling customers to search for products that meet their lifestyle needs.

Read more: Shipt Adds Dietary Preferences To Meet Shoppers’ Individual Needs

“Shipt was actually

Read more →

China’s SAMR Publishes Draft Rules for Health Food Claims

On August 2, 2022, China’s State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) published the draft implementation rules for technical evaluation of new claims for health foods.[1] This is another step the authorities are taking to develop SAMR’s regulatory framework for the registration and notification of health foods.[2] Notably, health foods in China not only include foods that make health claims, but also nutrient supplements, such as vitamins and minerals.

Back in 2016, SAMR created a dual-track system to regulate health foods, ie, registration and notification. Under such a system, one of the requirements is that industry is only allowed to use a claim that is on the list of permissible functional claims for health foods, eg, assists in boosting the immunity system, reducing fatigue, etc. A claim beyond SAMR’s list is considered “new,” and, thus, not permissible. SAMR’s new draft rules provide more clarification to

Read more →

Catholic Health forges partnerships to fight food insecurity

Dr. Patrick O’Shaughnessy, DO, MBA, is president and chief executive officer at Catholic Health, where he is passionate about extending the organization’s healing mission to help people live healthier lives. A proponent of population health management, his priorities include addressing the social determinants of health with a focus on alleviating food insecurity. Here, Dr. O’Shaughnessy explains how Catholic Health is combating food insecurity in Long Island and shares strategies for other health systems looking to do the same.

Why is food insecurity an important issue for you and Catholic Health?

Dr. O: Food is medicine, and if we are truly going to bend the disease curve in healthcare, we must start with what we eat. It is proven that eating the wrong foods over long periods of time will accelerate disease development. In fact, in Long Island 1 in 4 adults face food insecurity. That’s more than 218,000 people, including

Read more →

US Aims to Shift ‘Healthy’ Food Labels as It Fights Malnutrition

The federal government is seeking to change what’s needed for food products to brand themselves “healthy,” as part of the White House’s plan to boost nutrition nationally.

The Biden administration wants to end hunger by 2030 and ramp up nutrition in a country where the obesity rate now tops 40%. But its recommendations, highlighted on Wednesday in the first summit on the topic since 1969, are largely dependent on congressional cooperation and agency actions.

The Food and Drug Administration’s proposed rule to overhaul the “healthy” definition on food labels, is an early concrete action from the White House’s hunger goals. If such a rule goes through, it could tighten what food companies such as Kellogg Co. and PepsiCo Inc. need to call their products healthy, addressing longstanding concerns that Americans are eating too many processed foods and don’t understand how to properly get their nutrients.

“Today’s action is an important

Read more →

‘I felt like I failed’: inflation puts healthy food out of reach for millions of Americans | US news

In April, Kimberly Hart made a resolution to lose some weight on the advice of her doctor. Hart, who is 61 and lives in New Haven, Connecticut, has high blood pressure and cholesterol. These factors, combined with her age and weight, put her at an elevated risk for developing diabetes, and she wanted to do whatever she could to prevent that from happening.

One element within her control, Hart thought at the time, was her diet. She started seeing a nutritionist, a cost covered by Medicaid, and eating more healthily. But it wasn’t long before her efforts clashed with the reality of rising grocery costs.

In May, Hart began to really feel the pinch of higher prices, and by June, she realized she had to completely upend the way she put food on the table for her and her son.

Kimberly Hart prepares a weekend dinner for her and
Read more →

CNY nurse plans to launch new kind of health food store in Syracuse suburb

Raisa Zhovklaya thought she was supposed to be in the best shape of her life when she turned 30. But at multiple points earlier this year, she felt disgusted with her body. Struggles with weight, acne break-outs, GI issues, and depression all contributed to a gradual lifestyle change. She began adjusting habits, like drinking water, eating healthy, working out regularly, getting enough sleep, and talking to her doctors. What started as a goal to just feel better led to Zhovklaya founding Project LeanNation Syracuse, a health store slated to open at the beginning of next year in Township 5 in Camillus.

“I’ve always been interested and passionate about health and fitness, but I just never went full-force into it until I decided to approach it in a whole different way,” Zhovklaya said. “So many people don’t think of Syracuse as a hip and healthy town or city, so I think

Read more →

Pet Food as Health Food Spurs Impressive Sales Gains

ROCKVILLE, Md., Sept. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — US retail sales of dog and cat food approached $40 billion in 2021, up 15% over 2020, according to Packaged Facts’ just-released Pet Food in the US (September 2022). Over the 2017-2021 period, dog and cat food garnered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11%.

Recent inflationary prices for pet food only partially spurred that growth. If the pet food market is not wholly proof against hard times, it’s very hardily resistant, as proven in the wake of COVID.

Double-digit sales growth in the pet food market—large and ostensibly mature as it is—is driven by ongoing product premiumization, if not “superpremiumization.” This long-running trend is currently epitomized by the success of the fresh (refrigerated/frozen) pet food category. Fresh pet food tilts toward human-grade in formulation and to direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales in distribution, albeit now trending rapidly into brick-and-mortar as

Read more →

New community in Hartford to provide health care and food

HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) – A new cathedral community center has opened its doors in Hartford.

It’s going to help more people in the capital city get access to healthcare and food.

This will help more people who don’t have health insurance and are food insecure.

Malta House has been serving the community with mobile vans for years.

Now that they have an actual building, they can more than double the patients they see.

“The Malta House project really gets to the heart of our mission. Our very essence which is working collaboratively and joining in projects that make life better for the poor and needy and the vulnerable,” said James Smith, General Chair of The Hartford Bishops’ Foundation.

The building will serve as the new permanent location for the Malta House of Care clinic and the Cathedral Food Pantry.

It’s located in the shadow of the Cathedral of Saint Joseph

Read more →