Neepawa Eats Healthy – Meal In 30 Project

The Neepawa Eats Healthy Committee is excited to be introducing the Meal in 30 Project – A partnership with local community groups, agencies, Prairie Mountain Health and the Neepawa Gladstone Co-op and Neepawa Safeway Grocery stores.

March is Nutrition Month and Neepawa Eats Healthy is launching “Meal in 30” kits on March 1st, 2023 at the participating grocery stores. Shoppers can look for the featured “Meal in 30” recipe, try it at home, tell the committee what they think by answering a short questionnaire and have a chance to win a grocery prize pack at the end of each month. The project will also run during the months of April and May.

Neepawa Eats Healthy is a group of dedicated partners representing local organizations and community members working together to improve healthy eating outcomes in the community.

“The goals of this project are to encourage local community members to cook and prepare healthy, budget friendly meals at home, build food skills, eat healthy and shop local” commented, Amanda Naughton Gale, committee member of the Neepawa Eats Healthy group.
During the next 3 months, shoppers in Neepawa can look for a recipe of the month that is quick and easy, includes vegetables and/or fruit, has easy substitutions (based on some basic shelf ingredients) and is budget friendly!

Brittney Bartecki, Registered Dietitian from Prairie Mountain Health is also part of the Neepawa Eats Healthy committee and is also excited about the project. “We are encouraging our community to find ways to cook more at home, experiment with new recipes and have some fun in the kitchen! Hopefully helping to take some guess work out of meal planning by helping to add a few new meal ideas into your week.”

Here is how everyone can get involved:

Pick up the monthly featured recipe at Safeway or the Neepawa Gladstone Co-op
Look for the Tagged food Items with the Neepawa Eats Healthy Logo on the grocer shelves
Take home and cook up your tasty meals / once you are done….
Scan the recipe QR code to complete a short survey for a chance to win a free grocery pack drawn each month.

By picking up the Meal In 30 recipe card and purchasing at least 3 of the featured items, people will also receive a Neepawa Eats Healthy Reusable Grocery Bag (while supplies last!)

The committee is excited to have the participation of the Neepawa Titans supporting this project. Players from the local hockey club spent a day in the kitchen acting as guest cooks for the 3 recipes that will be featured on the local Access 12 station, helping to create awareness and encourage everyone to get involved. “Their participation has been lots of fun and we hope the community will get behind the project and will try the featured recipe over the next 3 months,” commented Bartecki.

For any questions about this project please contact Sherrill-Lee Hyra, Health Promotion Coordinator, Prairie Mountain Health at [email protected] or call 204-578-2192.

March is Nutrition Month

The theme for 2023 is Unlock the Potential of Food: Find a Dietitian. Many people are confused about food and nutrition; daily, they are bombarded with conflicting messages about this topic. Dietitians are here to help people unpack the research around nutrition, make sustainable changes in their eating behaviours, and understand their relationship with food. However, many people also don’t know where to find a Dietitian or how to schedule an appointment.

Dietitians work in many roles, including managing food service operations, media and journalism, clinical roles in hospitals or long-term care facilities, public health and health promotion, cancer care, grocery stores and pharmacies, primary care clinics, sports teams, etc.

Some Dietitian services are covered through Manitoba Health, while others have a cost to them and are only covered by private insurance like an employee benefits plan. Unfortunately, not all employee benefit plans cover Dietitian services, however, Dietitians of Canada is advocating for more coverage for Canadians, and you can too! Whether you are an employee or an employer, you can advocate for Dietitian coverage on your insurance plan; for more information, go to Dietitians of Canada – Coverage and Access to RD Services.

If you are struggling with a chronic health condition, food allergies, your relationship with food, or any other aspect of your nutrition, make an appointment with a dietitian today!

Book an appointment with a Dietitian:

Prairie Mountain Health Central Intake 1-877-509-7852.

Learn more about the roles of Dietitians in Prairie Mountain Health by visiting here.

Private Practice | College of Dietitians of Manitoba

Sweet Potato or Yam?

Did you know? Sweet Potatoes and yams are completely different vegetables.

The orange tapered potatoes commonly called yams are in fact sweet potatoes, while many people have probably never tried a yam before. Yams are brown with a bark-like skin and are not very common in North America. Yams can also grow to be much bigger than sweet potatoes. There are a couple different varieties of sweet potatoes which vary in colour such as rose coloured skin with orange flesh, pale copper/tan skin with white flesh, red skin with dry white flesh, as well as purple skin and flesh.

The nutrition profiles of yams and sweet potatoes are similar, however yams are starchier, while sweet potatoes are sweeter. Sweet potatoes have more Vitamin A while yams have more Vitamin C and potassium. Yams and sweet potatoes can both be prepared by roasting, steaming, boiling or frying. Substituting yams in a sweet potato dish would be like using potatoes instead of sweet potatoes in the recipe—it would work, but the end result would taste very different.

Author: Heather Janssens