Helping people buy better…and eat better

Food and Nutrition, April, 1985 by Bonnie W. Polk

Helping People Buy Better . . . and Eat Better

From coast to coast and from north to south, these messages along with five others are being heard on radios everywhere. They are part of a nationwide information project USDA has launched to help food stamp recipients and other low-income families get more nutritional value for their food dollars.

"What we've done with this project,' says George Braley, Deputy Administrator of Special Nutrition Programs for USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), "is taken the nutrition education efforts USDA has made in the past and brought them to their logical conclusion.

"We've done this by developing and distributing materials that lowincome consumers with limited reading skills can read or hear and easily understand.'

Project builds on earlier effort

The new materials have been developed as "Part Two' of the nutrition education project USDA initiated in 1983.

In the first part of the project, the Department prepared a booklet containing meal plans, recipes, and food buying tips. The booklets were introduced at a series of workshops held in seven cities throughout the country.

The 1983 booklet, called Making Food Dollars Count--Nutritious Meals at Low Cost, was written at a high reading level and was intended for nutrition professionals, paraprofessionals, social service workers, and community leaders who work with low-income families.

"This was a fine starting point,' says Braley. "But we learned from this experience that there was a need for something tangible that low-income participants in a workshop or one-on-one activity could take home with them as a reminder of what they had just learned.'

In November 1983, several USDA agencies formed a nutrition education task force to come up with ideas on the best materials for low-income audiences.

In addition to representatives from FNS, which would have primary responsibility for developing and distributing the materials, the task force included representatives from the Agricultural Marketing Service, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Human Nutrition Information Service, the Office of Governmental and Public Affairs, the Extension Service, and the Office of the Consumer Advisor.

During a series of meetings and with the input of food stamp eligibility workers and supervisors, the group identified major concepts to be developed in the materials.

"Buy better to eat better'

"What we came up with,' says Patricia Daniels of FNS' Nutrition and Technical Services Division, "were two themes, "Buy Better' and "Eat Better'. We wanted to give people information that would help them develop specific skills--like knowing how to compare brands to get the best buys and to read labels for nutritional content.

"Another idea we wanted to get across was that with convenience foods you can spend a lot of money for fancy packaging and seasonings. We wanted people to see that you can get more for your money by doing things yourself--and often without a lot of extra time and trouble.'

The materials FNS developed present these and other concepts in a number of different ways. They are being called Make Your Food Dollars Count--a slight change from the earlier Making Food Dollars Count booklet--to emphasize their consumer orientation. The materials include:

Four pamphlets in English and Spanish with two messages on each. The pamphlets can be displayed in social service offices, used in workshops or in one-on-one sessions with individuals, or mailed to food stamp recipients.

Two full-color posters in English and Spanish for use in food stamp offices and other group settings.

A 12-minute slide show that can be used with an accompanying cassette tape and narrative guide.

Eight 30-to 60-second radio public service announcements--six in English and two in Spanish.

Nutrition and shopping messages in English and Spanish in a reproducible format for use by magazines and newspapers.

A project guide with suggestions for using the materials in local food stamp offices and for coordinating activities with community organizations.

Careful planning included surveys

To ensure that the materials would be appropriate for and useful to food stamp recipients, staff from FNS headquarters and its Mid-Atlantic regional office showed the posters and pamphlets to a representative sampling of food program participants before the materials were printed in final form.

"We wanted to know how attractive food stamp recipients found the publications,' says Daniels, "how well they understood and could accept them, and how well they could identify with the information in them.

"We made a lot of changes as a result of our surveys, but we made sure the format of the materials remained consistent, straightforward, and simple so that recipients could understand the messages.

"Most important to us throughout the project,' says Daniels, "was getting the materials into the hands of the people who needed them. As a result, we made sure that we printed enough posters for every food stamp office and enough pamphlets for every food stamp household in the country.