Hi Bulls!
February is National Heart Month and with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, there’s no better time to focus on heart health. Did you know that USF Dining works with the American Heart Association (AHA) to help create delicious and nutritious recipes to help promote health and wellness? In 2015, Aramark partnered with the AHA to launch our Healthy for Life® initiative. The goal was to empower people to make better food choices in order to improve diets and health by 20% by the year 2020. Menu commitments included reducing calories, saturated fat, and sodium levels by 20%, as well as increasing fruits, vegetables, and whole grains by 20% throughout all our recipes. The initiative reached its goal by having an average reduction of 20% in calories, saturated fat, and sodium to date. It also reached it’s increase goal by having 19% increase in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, leading to 34% of main dishes now being vegan or vegetarian!
Once the 20 by 20 initiative was implemented and completed, Aramark looked forward to the future. To continue our work with the AHA and Healthy for Life®, USF Dining has now implemented the Feed Your Potential 365 (FYP365) campaign. It is an ongoing effort to help people discover how healthy foods can feed their potential and accomplish their best! Click on the link above to visit the FYP365 website. There you will find tips and tricks for eating well, “healthy hacks” for healthier twists on traditional favorites, videos to help prepare foods, and so much more! This information has been collected and curated by Aramark’s chefs, dietitians, and other employees across the country.
The latest FYP program is our winter Go for the Gold initiative. In celebration of American Heart Month and National Nutrition Month (March), we’re encouraging guests to look for the gold leaf for our delicious and nutritious Eat Well selection. From February 15th through March 12th, we’ll highlight certain menu items with out gold leaf symbol (shown to the right). These Eat Well selections are lower in calories, saturated fat and sodium. They contain nutritionally dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, whole grains, beans, and lean proteins. Make sure to try out a few dishes and let us know what you think!
If you are a meal plan holder and would like to schedule a consultation with me to learn how to eat well and feed your potential, please reach out!
Stay safe and stay healthy.
-Karina
nutrition-nook.com 