bravenewlunch@gmail.com

Thursday, April 29, 2010

RD, LDN, MS, Ph.D

I am noticing that a good number of school food service directors, especially the younger ones, are registered dietitians, licensed dieticians and nutritionist, or have a Masters degree or Ph.D in nutrition.  I’m not surprised.  If I were a parent with a child in a school, I’d want my food service director to have a degree in childhood nutrition.

Yet, it peeves me that we need someone with a special degree to tell us what we should and shouldn’t eat.  Up until recently, that person with all those degrees didn’t exist, and our mothers were the experts in the food department.  A lot has changed! 

I’m thinking of going back to school to get a Masters in Nutrition – I feel the pressure to know more about nutrition so that I can legitimately answer questions about the food served at my school.  I really wish I could just focus on serving good home cooked food.   

4 comments:

  1. Interesting that there are so many experts in nutrition, yet so little nutrition in the foods.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I work at a school with that offers a masters in nutrition. The program recently added a culinary unit that runs a cafe and has a garden because they realized they were graduating students with a great scientific theoretical background who didn't have basic knowledge about cooking and food. It's been a major success.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a wonderful idea! Knowing about food is as important to know what goes in it!

    take a look at my new blog!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ali, does your school participate in the national school lunch program? In all honesty, I don't think that the regulations for the meal patterns are totally off base. They could use some updates (which I believe are in the works) and schools could provide "better" choices in the framework of the regulations...choosing "better" vegetables, for example.

    As always, budget rears it's head in some cases...sad to say. Reality is such a pain.

    That's my long winded way of saying that it sounds like you, personally, have a pretty good handle on what is needed, I'm not sure more letters behind the name is a benefit. Still, it can make a difference to some and if it gets more respect, that's worth something as well.

    ReplyDelete