What should I eat? CSU hosts annual nutrition conference June 4-5

Note to Reporters: High-resolution photos are available at http://col.st/nAVoR.

With a new diet recommendation hitting the Internet every day, nutrition educators are on the front lines when it comes to making sure Americans have the most up-to-date scientific information about food and nutrition. Colorado State University’s 36th Lillian Fountain Smith Conference, sponsored by the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, will arm nutrition educators with current and authoritative data for their fight against obesity and other nutrition-related chronic diseases.

This year’s conference, held June 4-5 at the Hilton Fort Collins, will tackle questions surrounding the new 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans to be released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture later this year.

With the array of nutrition information available to consumers, it is often difficult to answer the question of what to eat for good health. Conference speakers, all nationally recognized for their contributions to nutrition research or practice, will address the application and use of dietary guidelines, the hunter-gatherer diet, sustainable food production, and a case for the plant-based diet.

Highlights of the conference include:

• Preparing for the New Dietary Guidelines will feature David Jacobs, professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, discussing the differences among nutrients, foods, and dietary patterns.

• Tom Brenna, professor in the Departments of Nutrition, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Food Science and Technology at Cornell University, will present the most effective dietary patterns revealed to date for chronic disease risk reduction.

• Western Dairy Association-sponsored speaker Holley Grainger, founding food editor of MyRecipes.com and former nutrition editor of CookingLight.com, will share strategies for using technology and social media to communicate dietary guidelines to the public.

• Tracy Miller, director of the Child and Adult Care Food Program in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, will discuss how the Dietary Guidelines for Americans shape policy change and intervention planning.

• Colorado State University’s Susan Baker, associate professor and extension specialist in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and Melissa Wdowik, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, will share Teaching the Messages of the Dietary Guidelines and Using the Dietary Guidelines in Nutrition Counseling, respectively.

• The Food Diet Continuum: Back to the Future features Alyssa Crittenden, Lincy Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, and Shawn Archibeque, associate professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University, who will talk about What Hunter-Gatherers Can Tell Us About the History of the Human Diet and Everyone to the Plate: Sustainable Food Production Must Be an Inclusive Solution, respectively.

• Joan Sabaté, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Loma Linda University’s School of Public Health, will make the case for plant-based diets at the global level.

Other conference activities include a Thursday afternoon reception at The Gardens on Spring Creek, which is included with registration, and a Friday morning poster session featuring research by faculty and students in CSU’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

The Lillian Fountain Smith Conference honors Smith, a 1918 graduate in home economics from Colorado State University (then Colorado A&M) and is sustained annually by the Lillian Fountain Smith Conference Endowment, which was established by Smith, her husband and their children.

To register for the conference, visit www.fshn.chhs.colostate.edu/outreach/lfs/ or call 970-491-7334. Attendees will be eligible to receive nine continuing education units.

The Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition is part of the College of Health and Human Sciences at CSU.

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