Getting across meat nutrition message
Getting across meat nutrition message
MEAT is a formidable component in a balanced diet and strenuous efforts are being made by the British Nutrition Foundation to convey this message to children, teenagers and the elderly.
Speaking at the conference, BNF director Richard Pickard outlined the historical and current value of meat. "Meat is a rich source of readily available nutrients. If our ancestors had been herbivores, they would have spent all their time eating with no time to develop societies."
In the modern world, there are varying nutritional reasons for targeting meat at different age groups, he said. "Children under five should receive adequate fat to give them every opportunity to build their nervous system. Cutting red meat out of teenage diets can lead to anaemia and insufficient meat in diets for elderly people may lead to vitamin B12 deficiency, because the ability to absorb it declines as they approach 80 years old."
BNF plans to educate children on nutrition using CD-ROMs, which can be used in areas of the curriculum such as IT, because time allocated to teaching nutrition is limited, said Prof Pickard.
A CD-ROM entitled Nutrition takes children through selecting a meal, identifying its components and finding out where they came from all the way back to the farm. "This has been taken up by the Food Standards Agency in Wales and will be distributed to all secondary schools there. We also anticipate there will be high demand from schools elsewhere in the UK."
Improving consumer understanding of nutrition will help consumers better understand the products they are buying, he believes. "No industry can successfully sell products when customers dont understand what is being marketed."
Should producers be interested in finding out more information about the nutrition of food produced on their farm to help with marketing, the BNFs web-site (www.nutrition.org.uk) may help, said Prof Pickard.
There is much to say about meats positive nutritional benefits, according to Robert Pickard.