AHS goes to market

This fall, Mariano’s shoppers may see something unusual in grocery stores: produce tours, conducted by AHS students.

Twenty undergraduate and graduate students in nutrition will be trained to give tours of fresh, frozen and canned produce sections, thanks to a grant awarded to nutrition program director Jamie Shifley and Peggy Balboa ’10 BS NUT, Mariano’s only registered dietitian. The grant came from the Produce for Better Health Foundation, whose mission is to inspire more produce consumption in the U.S. as a matter of public health.

Shifley and Balboa will deliver the training, which functions as an independent-study course for students who participate. Then “Mariano’s Edible Store Excursions” will be available to consumer groups upon request at any of Mariano’s 32 stores.

Shifley is eager to get students involved in nutrition education in the community. For her part, Balboa is excited that the experience “will provide students real-world examples of the questions customers have, and the importance of unified answers based in science,” she says. “Plus, these students will have a blast!”