The Nutrition Sub-Committee: We’re not just about calories……….

The Food Chain Nutrition Sub-Committee (‘NSC’) has about 10 permanent members. We’re a mix of nutrition students, qualified nutritionists and nutritional therapists, dieticians, lead cooks and chefs. We meet once a month in central London, and all the members volunteer to help with any current projects the committee has.

Although looking at the nutritional content of the food made and delivered by the Food Chain is a large part of our work, we don’t just determine the calorie content of meals! We’ve been involved a diverse range of projects over the past year. In this very first email, we thought it was a good time to give you all a bit more of an insight into what we do, and highlight the services we can offer!

Here is a rundown of the main projects we have been involved in over the past year:

Online recipe bank and the Ian Craddock cookbook:

By now most of those involved with the Food Chain will be aware that the Food Chain launched an online interactive cookbook in February 2007, in memory of Ian Craddock, a longtime lead cook for the Food Chain. The online cookbook is intended as a resource for lead cooks, Food Chain service users, and anyone living with HIV.

The recipes in the online cookbook were sourced or suggested by our lead cooks, celebrity chefs, and friends of The Food Chain, and adapted and analysed for nutritional content by members of the Nutrition Sub-Committee.
They can be found at http://www.iancraddock.com/ - take a look! It will be especially useful for lead cooks who need inspiration for a Sunday menu. Each recipe has a basic nutritional breakdown. There’s also a glossary on the site to explain nutritional terms.

The site will be constantly updated with new recipes and information, so add it to your favourite websites. Also look out for the Ian Craddock cookbook which is due to be published in book format soon....

Nutrition Handbook

The Food Chain is now in the final stages of creating a Nutrition Handbook for our service users. Written by the NSC, it gives practical advice on shopping, cooking and eating to stay healthy, as well as explaining some of the nutrition jargon that we see on food labels and in nutrition advice every day.

Talks and presentations

The 2007 Lead Cooks Day took place in the fabulous Bermondsey Food Chain kitchen on 3 February 2007. The aim was to provide information to new lead cooks, promoting the role and how enjoyable it can be, as well as updating existing lead cooks. Along with some brilliant cooking demonstrations by lead cooks and chefs, there were talks given by a number of NSC members on HIV nutrition and cooking for special dietary requirements, which were very well received.

Soon after the Lead Cook’s Day, the NSC gave a talk to the London Lighthouse (a support, information and drop in centre) centre at King’s College Hospital, which also received positive feedback.

The NSC plans to give further talks at Food Chain affiliated or sister organisations across London in the future as the need arises.

Nutrition hotline

The nutrition hotline has been operating for over a year now. Each week, one of the NSC members is responsible for taking calls from lead cooks who have nutritional queries about the recipes /menus they plan for the service each Sunday.

For example, the nutrition hotline could give advice on:

• Adapting a menu for someone with a gluten intolerance or allergy;
• Planning a low salt or low potassium menu;
• The types of food that would be suitable for a service user with diabetes;
• The nutritional content of ingredients.

Sunday Menus

The NSC also receives menus for the Sunday Service from lead cooks, and we ensure that the recipes are nutritionally suitable to send to our service users. We try to give constrictive, positive feedback to the lead cooks about their recipes – if we think a recipe is great, we say so! And we may decide that it should be included in the online cookbook.

Ultimately, we hope that we can build up enough tried-and-tested approved recipes in the online recipe bank to be used by lead cooks, eliminating the need to monitor the menus at all.

Conferences:

It’s our job to keep up with the most recent developments in HIV nutrition. One lucky NSC member attended ANSA (Association of Nutrition Services Agencies) in Chicago at the end of August, and has brought back lots of useful suggestions on how we could improve our service.

Upcoming projects:

Food Chain shopping service:

The Food Chain plans to offer a shopping service for those service users who are most in need of assistance. This would replace the ‘grocery box’ delivery scheme that was previously operating. Service users would be offered a volunteer to help them with shopping, including food selection, and the NSC will be instrumental in designing the nutrition training our volunteers will receive.

Join us!

If you want to get involved in the nutrition sub-committee, email Rhiannon in the office by clicking here, and she will put you in touch with us. You don’t have to be a qualified food expert – if you are interested in and knowledgeable about food and nutrition, and can give some of you time during the month to help with our various projects, we’d love to hear from you!