A Better Bag of Groceries

FNCE Day 1

Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 05:40 PM

For those of you who don’t know (and until recently, I did not know), FNCE is the American Dietetic Association’s Food & Nutrition Conference and Expo. It is attended annually by about 8,000 – 10,000 registered dietitians (RDs). Another thing that I have learned since coming here is that RDs work in many different capacities including hospitals, schools, government agencies, the armed forces, corporations, food manufacturers, retailers, universities and private practice, just to name a few. This year, the conference is being held in Denver, the mile-high city.

I definitely felt the effects of the change in altitude yesterday. After hydrating, however, and getting some rest, I felt much better this morning and managed a 4:30 AM run in my hotel’s fitness center. Fortunately, my body is still on Eastern Time, so it felt like 6:30 to me.

Denver is unique and the Rockies are breathtaking.

I keep humming John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High in my head!

We have 4 people here representing NuVal. Rob Keane, our Senior Manager of Communications, is one of the best writers I know!

Laura Sutherland, who is Director of Customer Management and Manufacturer Relations, is full of southern hospitality and charm.

And Annette Maggi, our Senior Director of Nutrition for NuVal, is a real superstar. Here she is with Dr. Eric Decker, Head of the Food Science Department at the University of Massachusetts and a member of NuVal’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Our booth is in a great location. We are right next to Subway.

And behind us is the booth that I would vote Most Beautiful: Wild Blueberries. Blueberries, even frozen ones without additives, score 100 on the NuVal scale.

The supermarket shelves that we set up are coming in most handy.

We can show that broccoli gets a NuVal score of 100. Add cheese and that score changes to 39. Ouch!

Here is Laura showing a dietitian how NuVal works.

And I am sitting down at our lovely conference table to review the ONQI algorithm, the formula which drives our NuVal scores.

We were all talked out by the end of the day. It was a great time to go find ChobaniNicki. The Chobani booth was packed and she was very busy.

I got my favorite, non-fat vanilla for a great NuVal score of 73! Thanks Chobani. I overheard them say that they went through 2500 Chobani samples today.

Well, my feet hurt by the time we closed up our booth. How I wish I were taller than 5′ 4″ so that I could get away with wearing flat shoes. Laura and I splurged on a pedi-cab ride back to our hotel.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until we were in the lobby that we discovered we were in the wrong hotel! Oy!

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