Health eating out of a food bank is yet another way Vincentians can help in all possible ways. It is a new program created in Canada’s most southerly conference, St John de Brebeuf Conference in Kingsville, Ontario. This new program will be made available electronically to every conference in Canada free of charge beginning with the first issue in spring 2014 and continuing quarterly at the start of each season.

It was created in December 2013 while SSVP was participating in the semi-annual food drive sponsored by Loblaw Canada and Food Banks Canada. It was there, when I first met the in-store dietitian who was helping local shoppers make healthy choices for their family meals.

So meet Chantal Brazeau, RD. Chantal is a registered dietitian working in her chosen field of nutrition and healthy living. Chantal, originally from Ottawa, obtained her first degree in Sport & Physical Education from Laurentian University in 2007. Then off to British Colombia where she worked for a year and discovered her real calling: sport nutrition. So back to University of Ottawa entering their Nutrition Sciences program to pursue a career in community nutrition. After earning her degree, she became a registered dietitian and is currently employed as an in-store Registered Dietitian for Windsor area Zehrs Markets sharing her time between stores in LaSalle and Kingsville Ontario. These are just the first few steps in achieving her long term goals as she strives to have a positive impact on the health and wellness of Canadians. This is what makes her smile.

She is passionate about healthy living and helping people lead an active and healthy lifestyle. As in-store dietitian, her primary objective is to provide tools to the customers in order to help them make more conscious food choices for their everyday lives and their families. Her personal goal is to touch as many Canadians as possible in order to promote long term health.

When Chantal is not offering nutritional advice or training and sharing her cooking skills and recipes, she can be found running the local country roads, experimenting and trying new recipes in the kitchen or enjoying time with family and friends.

Aside from what Chantal is doing in the LaSalle to Kingsville area, there are many other grocery stores all across Canada that offer in-store dietitian consulting services. At any one of those locations, you may obtain helpful instruction on dietary improvements tailored specifically to your needs. Everyone should be encouraged to take advantage of these programs for yourself and your families.

Now, Chantal, welcome to our world of SSVP.

Chantal and her associates, will create a quarterly newsletter with a very specific theme. We realize that families who receive food from food banks, do not always have full range of choices in food selection, and often, based on financial limitations, do not select enough nor sometimes the best items for their diet. Here is where Chantal and her associates will put their training and skills into action helping individuals and families with nutritional dietary options that make sense and is within their budget.

The newsletter will be themed for each new season of the year. In it, there will be at least two sections and sometimes three: (1) a nutritional segment, describing some element of healthy eating, nutrient values and daily requirements, etc, (2) meal suggestions created out of food most commonly found in food banks, and (3) selected special articles. For example, it may include a short segment about balancing the diet from the major food groups, or how to read and understand packaging labels, then include a suggested way (menu and recipe) to improve the nutrient value of a Mac & Cheese dinner. Occasionally, special articles on active living and other health improving strategies may be included.
The newsletters will be available to all SSVP conferences and councils through a link found within SSVP National website and/or Ontario Regional website. All conferences are encouraged to download the file in Word format and print the file and copy (back-to-back) as many copies as you wish to include in every bag or box of food that you distribute. You will probably copy in black and white only, but the full colour version of each seasonal issue will be available on-line (as noted below).

One last item for our program. You are asked to help us gauge the breath of distribution that this program is achieving. If you download the newsletter and plan to use it in your local area for those you serve, please send an e-mail to the following and include your conference name and location and tell us how many families you serve including number of adults and children (X families, Y adults, Z children). In general, last year’s 2013 totals will be satisfactory for our purpose. This data may be useful to us in future newsletters as we can target specific elements to specific age groups.

The first newsletter for spring 2014 is now available. Look for the newsletter in the following websites:

National - https://www.ssvp.ca/ and https://www.ssvp.ca/fr
Ontario -https://www.ssvp.on.ca/en/index.php
E-mail your intended usage and coverage to:ssvpkingsvillecanada@hotmail.com

The combination of Chantal’s goal to touch many Canadians to promote long term health, and our SSVP goal to serve the poor in all possible ways makes for a winning program for health professionals, for SSVP and for those we serve.

Now is the call for all conferences to get involved in this project finding yet another new way to help the poor. Help us to serve the poor even better with love, respect, justice and joy and now with healthy eating habits.