MyPyramid PodCast #3 – Nutritional Gatekeepers

Brian Wansink:  Hi. I’m Dr. Brian Wansink, I’m the Executive Director for the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. And today I want to talk to you about a very special person in your family, it’s the “nutritional gatekeeper.”

The nutritional gatekeeper is the person that purchases and prepares most of the food your family eats. It’s very, very easy for us to say, ”I can’t control what my family eats!” In reality, we find that university studies show that somewhere between 70 and 75% of the food decisions your family makes, are controlled by the person who purchases and prepares the food. Let’s see what some of the neighborhood shoppers here do to be good nutritional gatekeepers for their families.

Person #1: …just cut them up, or teach the kids by showing them that you want to eat it yourself and so they think it’s yummy.

Person #2: For snack, I give her only fruit – bananas and pears and apples… And she loves grapes and bananas.

Person #3: …chop it up small and put it in different things… that usually will… put it in a soup. They’re becoming really big fans of homemade soup.

Person #1: Kids don’t even know that they’re eating whole wheat because it’s actually good now. Before when we were kids it was more like, you know, corrugated cardboard stuff. Now, you can get really good whole wheat bread that’s really soft. 

Brian Wansink: So you see, as nutritional gatekeepers we have a lot more control over what our family eats than we might otherwise think. If we buy the right types of foods and have them in the house, they’ll make the right types of choices – the healthy ones. So if you’re the type of nutritional gatekeeper that buys the right foods and makes it easier for your family to eat healthy, give yourself a pat on the back. If you’re not yet that type of person, you get a chance to make it right the very next time you shop. So for some really great tips, go to MyPyramid.gov to find some ways you can be a nutritional hero for your family.