Utilization Of Food To Promote Health Offers Potential To Save Health Care Dollars

May 29, 2015

The Vice President Research with the Canadian Nutrition Society suggests, by better utilizing food to promote health, tax dollars currently used to treat chronic disease can be diverted to other uses.

The Canadian Nutrition Society's 2015 annual conference kicked off yesterday in Winnipeg and wraps up tomorrow.

Dr. David Ma, an associate professor Human Health and Nutritional Sciences with the University of Guelph and the Vice President Research with the Canadian Nutrition Society, told those on hand for a "Food for Health" Workshop, the evolution of food and health and nutrition has changed dramatically over the last 10 to 20 years.

Dr. David Ma-University of Guelph:

In previous times we were really worried about just getting enough food on our plate.

Now we're really focusing on how we can better improve food to meet our optimal requirements for health and to prevent and manage chronic diseases all the way from obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Most recently, just yesterday, there was a major announcement from the Canadian Cancer Society recognizing that up to 50 percent of cancers can be prevented through lifestyle modification, which includes diet as an important component, so that means that food and nutrition play a huge role in terms of impacting our quality of life.

Source : Farmscape

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.