Board Institute

Nutrition assistance programs, including the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs (NSLP/SBP), and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), are intended to offer low-income families the opportunity for a healthier food pattern that promotes overall health and reduces risk for chronic disease. To be successful in improving the diets of underserved Americans requires a unified approach toward meeting the nutritional needs of program participants. Newly revised recommendations increase intakes of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain-rich foods while reducing consumption of saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium. In addition to improving the nutritional profile of meals and snacks for NSLP and CACFP and meal patterns for WIC, the new recommendations ensure variety within food groups for menus across a week and allow for regional and cultural preferences and increased flexibility of choice within food groups. The newly revised meal pattern recommendations are broadly applicable to the design of feeding programs for any age group and for any combination of meals and snacks being provided.

Dioxins and related compounds are undesirable and unintended contaminants in the food supply, and dietary intake is the major route of exposure. Reducing dietary exposure to dioxins among the most vulnerable segments of the population (i.e., pregnant women, infants, and young girls) is an effective strategy for reducing body burdens in future generations. Exposure to dioxins through foods can be minimized by selecting lower-fat versions of meats, poultry, and dairy products. Consuming all foods, including fatty fish, in recommended amounts is congruent with the goal of reducing dioxin intake exposure and maintaining good health.

Abstract Incidents of illness reported to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the period 1978–1987 were limited to ciguatera, scombroid fish poisoning (SFP), and paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Natural intoxications are both highly regional and species associated, and toxins are present in seafood at the time of capture.Ciguatera is a sometimes severe disease caused by consuming certain species of fish, usually island or reef, from tropical, subtropical, and other (temperate) waters, and was responsible for about half of all reported outbreaks to the CDC. Treatments are largely supportive, and mortality is usually low. Controls based on regulation of fishing or marketling of dangerous species, supported by testing suspect fish and educating consumers, sports fishers and health professionals, are recommended.SFP caused nearly the same number of outbreaks as ciguatera, but was much more widespread. Tuna, mahimahi and bluefish are implicated as the major cause of SFP. The disease is generally mild and self-resolving, and symptoms can often be ameliorated by certain antihistamine drugs. Because the histamine poisoning is produced due to improper temperature control after the fish is caught, the disease can be prevented by rapid cooling and holding fish at low temperature(s) before cooking, as well as by not leaving the fish out too long when serving it under inadequate terperature control. A Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point-based system, and the education of subsistence and recreational/commercial fishers and cooks/servers may control this poisoning.Paralytic shellfish poisoning was reported to the CDC as a minor cause of illness, with only two deaths. Although "other" natural seafood intoxications (e.g., puffer fish poisoning, and neurotoxic, diarrhetic and amnesic shellfish poisoning) have not been widely reported in U.S. consumers, the potential for their occurrence either from domestic or imported seafoods from imports is real. Increased vigilance concerning imported product, testing for these "other" toxins, and procedures to deal with outbreaks are needed.