Help feed the hungry. How to make your charitable contributions count.

November 6, 2025November 6, 2025 ~ Green Apple Dietitian ~ Leave a comment

I feel compelled to write about helping the less fortunate in the wake of the SNAP benefits fiasco. Access to food is a fundamental right, no matter race, gender, body size, age, or economic status. There’s no reason on Earth that food should be denied to anyone.

In all the years I’ve been a registered dietitian, food distribution remains a system with many forces that challenge it. There are days when my emotional side doesn’t agree with food service regulations that lead to food waste, despite my education and experience in dining services.

Reasons for food waste include:

Overage: When the amount of food served is less than what the kitchen forecasted. People don’t eat as much as kitchen staff anticipated, there’s poor inventory management, or a lack of proper storage.
A decline in food quality, such as spoilage, increases the risk of food-borne illnesses, which can be serious or deadly for certain segments of our population.
Aesthetics: Ugly edible food that doesn’t meet a retailer’s standards is discarded. How food looks to us is a normal biological defense mechanism against unsafe foods. If it doesn’t look good, we won’t eat it.

Yet my emotions surface when I observe full untouched pans of food getting thrown away minutes after the scheduled meal ends. At the very least, it should be available to the employees as a benefit of employment. Workers’ salaries in food service range from $11 to $19 per hour in the US, the last time I checked, which is abysmal in our current economy. I’m burnt out on hearing about food and staff shortages, while food service employees live in their cars.

I’m not here to claim I know everything about food service operations, but to the casual observer, discarding food always comes off as a stingy way of doing business. I don’t have to tell anyone that we seriously need to do better.

But I digress…

There’s a point when ranting no longer serves its purpose. It’s time to focus on making a difference. Here are some things I learned along the way, which will hopefully make it easier for folks to lend a helping hand. Let’s not become deer in headlights because we don’t know what to do.

How to feed the hungry. Don’t assume. Ask.

Start with the obvious, like donating food at a local grocery store. During the holidays, chances are you’ll see the familiar barrel dropped off by the local food pantry. There might even be a handy list of what foods they are asking for. Grocery stores also offer ready-to-eat meals or prepackaged bags of food for purchase. The hard work is already done.

Feeding America is nationally known. Log on to their website to learn about many aspects of giving. It’s a good place to begin if you’re starting a journey toward helping others.

Become more familiar with your local food bank. Visit their website, call them, and schedule a visit. Volunteers are more than happy to help navigate ways to help and are thankful when charitable people reach out. It’s the best place for the most current information about local people in need.

How to organize yourself and others to give generously

Alone or in a group, you can:

Start a food drive. Visit your local food pantry’s website and fill out an online form to have volunteers drop off one of their food barrels during a designated collection time. Otherwise, you can arrange to drop off donations.
Volunteer with family, friends, or co-workers to fill up food stock boxes, or participate in Meals on Wheels, to feed the elderly in need
Donate money directly on the pantry’s website or purchase items through their Amazon wish list. This is by far the easiest way to contribute, and you can do it periodically throughout the year.

Bust the myths of charitable giving. To make your donation count, don’t:

Assume what you eat will be the same as what everyone else eats. Not everyone has access to a stove, other cooking appliances, or even refrigeration. In lower-income neighborhoods, apartments for rent don’t always come with modern conveniences.
Buy bags of candy because you think that poor children never get to eat any. Yes, all children deserve candy or a cake on their birthday without judgment, but let’s leave that decision to the parents. Aim at acquiring food components that can be prepared and served within their economic environment. Research shows kids do better academically when they receive proper nourishment.
Clean out your pantry of old and expired food to give to charity. If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t expect others to, or to be grateful for food that’s past its expiration date.
Push your healthy eating expectations, which only leads to unhelpful assumptions, by expecting them to choose foods that don’t make sense financially. Help them get access to all foods in every food group.

Follow these tips and develop a way to give that will work for you and your budget. It’s time we stop accepting government shutdowns that cause unnecessary delays and do what we can to lift others. Let’s build a society where everyone can reap the benefits of a dignified life.

Links to explore:

U.S. Hunger Relief Organization | Feeding America

Find Your Local Food Bank | Feeding America

Volunteer Opportunities at Your Local Food Bank | Feeding America

Effects of poverty, hunger and homelessness on children and youth

The New York Times Replica Edition

Misfits Market, Imperfect Foods & the Battle Against Food Waste – Consumer Reports

How to defend yourself against Diet Culture during the holidays

October 21, 2025November 2, 2025 ~ Green Apple Dietitian ~ 1 Comment

I was in a big box hardware store yesterday, looking for purple and orange lights to add to my Halloween decorations. In one aisle, an oversized skeleton let out an evil laugh, while in the next aisle, Christmas music was blaring near the leftover Thanksgiving swag on sale at 20% off. I’m not sure how everyone else feels, but I need breathing room between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to take it all in.

Now that it’s October, for many folks, their attempts at dieting are all but a memory. In my experience, patients who succeeded in slimming down have realized some weight gain once their hunger soared out of control and the “healthy diet” fell hard against normalized eating patterns.

In starvation mode, the hungry body fights for calories by accelerating cravings for carbohydrates, which are impossible to ignore. With three holidays back-to-back, there are opportunities for delicious and savory foods that aren’t available any other time of the year. But with new insight and introspection, it doesn’t have to be a recipe for disaster.

This year, I followed the diet industry’s yearly cycle and wrote about ways to rise above it.

How to Avoid Plugging Back into the Diet Culture this January

January is over. How is the weight loss diet going?

Right now, advertisers are heavily focused on holiday giving to maximize sales, which will soon be followed by the dieting and exercise industry’s application of pressure to eat less and move more. And the only way you can attain the thin ideal is with (add whatever diet/exercise company here) in your corner. What a perfect time to declare us all as gluttonous for being “too merry” over the holidays. This year, harness your inner strength so you can turn your back on all this nonsense once and for all.

Three ways to build a healthy body image

It won’t be easy. But nothing worthwhile is easy. I’m going to share with you the accumulation of my experiences with patients who struggle with their weight and their relationship with food. I offer a different approach to the holidays to help you find the confidence to eat and nourish your body on your own terms.

Practice body compassion

No matter where your weight falls on the BMI scale, your nutrition needs are unique. Most people parrot nutritional information without much thought. If everyone’s doing it, it must be right. Except that it’s not right when people who are otherwise healthy go to extremes to be in a smaller body, or believe that the only way to better health is to lose weight. Ask yourself how much joy you’ve lost by telling yourself you can’t eat certain foods while limiting yourself during social situations. Body compassion will shield you from a negative body image by avoiding unhealthy comparisons. Focus on what you can change instead of what you can’t change.

Gratefulness: appreciate how your body works and its functions that keep you alive. All the systems in your body work together to keep you going. As humans, we are aware of our own mortality and possess the ability to change the course of our lives in many ways to achieve positive outcomes.
Acceptance: acknowledge the imperfections of your body without harsh judgment. Acknowledge the good things, whether it’s your eyes, your hair, your smile, or your ability to do something most others around you can’t do.
Kindness: Tell yourself that you’re doing your best with what you know right now. As Maya Angelou once said, “Once you know better, do better.” Treat yourself like you would your best friend. Kindness costs nothing.

Tune out the health and wellness chatter. Most of it isn’t worth your time and attention.

Nutrition is a topic everyone has had a lived experience with. It’s not like neurosurgery, where a select few possess the knowledge. Everyone has their list of eat this, not that, but most advice falls within the “I didn’t ask you” category. All the good intentions won’t make it helpful.

Social media makes it extremely difficult to know what advice to trust. Even credentialed health practitioners don’t always share accurate information. They’re experts in their field of practice, but remain severely uneducated in the study of nutrition. I’ve witnessed highly educated practitioners share ideals that were disproven by science long ago. It can be overwhelming, and I sympathize with my patients who come to me looking for clarity.

Most advice on social media is shared without much thought about the consequences to the viewers. It becomes proliferated by all the clueless and rigid opinions in the comment section. It’s important to know that health practitioners who truly care about your health are not spending time spreading misinformation on social media. They’re in hospitals and clinics working hard to help patients make sense of it all. If you know that social media marketing strives to evoke strong emotions to get a reaction, you’re already halfway there. Here are three ways to navigate nutrition’s complicated landscape.

Match the expertise with the advice.
If a famous actress is selling a weight loss program, chances are it’s a lived experience that worked for them, but would require a complete overhaul of your current lifestyle. It can be hard to tell if what you’re hearing is coming from someone who’s currently struggling with their own issues.
Avoid getting pulled in by generalizations
Savvy marketing uses sound bites to pull buyers in. Notice how many times you hear the words, “all natural, clinically proven, FDA cleared, and lose weight and keep it off.” They create a convincing veil of legitimacy to make a sale by counting on the fact that most people aren’t science experts. But you don’t have to be an expert if you understand what’s behind their tactics.
Be skeptical of any nutritional advice from friends or loved ones. People who care about us often believe they’re helping when they comment on something they see as wrong. They want to fix it. Weight gain is almost always viewed negatively and criticized without understanding the true cause. Weight loss is celebrated even if it happens unintentionally. Health advice given without proper training and experience shouldn’t be taken seriously, regardless of good intentions.

Ask yourself how you can be more flexible

The holidays can trigger individuals with rigid eating habits, picky eaters, and patients with eating disorders. Selecting foods only for perceived health benefits is limiting and promotes anxiety around eating. Rigidity should never justify restricting a meal when your thoughts tell you there are no good options. Food is all around us, but unless you’re financially unfortunate, there is no lack of nutritious food. Start with these ways to increase flexibility around foods from any source.

Focus on healthy eating behavior, not the health of specific foods. The efficacy of nutrition is found in pairing many foods together. Health is in variety. Eating one type of food while forgoing many others only leads to vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
If a food is new to you, try a small sample. The best way to know if you will like an unfamiliar food is to use all your senses. Judging a food by looks won’t give you enough information. You won’t know what you could be missing out on.
Be curious about any anxiety related to uncertainties around food. Be mindful of any fear related to certain foods and why. Find a qualified practitioner if you suspect or have a history of an eating disorder.

The power to be as you are

While practicing compassion and tuning out the noise of unsound advice, you will find the flexibility you need to be present during the holidays. You’ll no longer be lured in by the “new year, new you” dogma. Balancing a mix of self-care while going with the flow can keep you strong enough to push away the diet culture’s insistence that you need to fix yourself. You’ll gain the power and confidence to believe that you are worthy of being and looking just as you are.

January is over. How’s the weight loss diet going?

February 16, 2025February 16, 2025 ~ Green Apple Dietitian ~ 1 Comment

Around this time of year, diets lose steam as old habits die hard. Once that person brings donuts into the office again all bets are off. But I get it. I’m not on a diet to lose weight, but I’ve had my share of treats at the office. Treats are one thing but underconsumption has consequences, usually increased hunger, which affects our mood and energy levels, so, understandably, dieting fails.

For those trying to lose weight, on some level, I think there are parts of dieting we can all agree on. For one, it’s hard to change eating habits for the promise of a better lifestyle in a thin body. What I’ll never agree with is that body weight is completely controllable, especially since many other variables exist. Our body reacts to everything we do to it.

If you’re losing weight and are feeling good about yourself for getting smaller, I hope that you’re not feeling deprived and forcing a big smile while your body suffers through the restrictions you’ve chosen to put on it. I hope you’re getting enough food, water, and sleep, and are managing the stressors in your life. One word of advice, try to accept yourself a little bit more in the moment.

If you’re wondering why I’m skeptical of your weight loss journey, it’s usually because the story ends with someone losing weight but goes no further. The aftermath of dieting is weight gain. The weight loss movement wants you to believe that the body’s normal reactions to deprivation are a failure.

Having an appetite isn’t your fault.

Forcing your will against nature is futile. While dieting the body will fight undereating by increasing hunger cues and turning on carbohydrate cravings. This makes sense since the body digests them first for energy and cognitive function. The body wants to maintain a stable internal environment despite changes in the external environment. So, it has nothing to do with willpower when all the body is trying to do is survive. If you understand this, it should make the promotion of weight loss, on an otherwise healthy individual, look very cruel and unempathetic.

I’ve observed significant weight increases in patients after severely restricting their eating and losing weight. They don’t understand why they lose out to binge eating. Reasons for restricting their food intake were usually anxiety-related. However, since they believed they were better at a lower weight, the weight gain was accompanied by feelings of failure, inadequacy, and depression.

Patients entering adulthood often fail to understand the changes in weight trends from high school to college. Somehow, along the way, they learned that higher body weight is unacceptable, so they had difficulty accepting their adult weight. We are all told at a young age to control our appetites and are bombarded with misinformed ways to do so. And now we have a pharmaceutically successful way to do so artificially.

Weight loss medications focus our attention on the high failure rates of dieting.

With the rising popularity of weight loss drugs, the cruelty of diet culture has accelerated. As of this blog post, the drugs are mostly available to those who can afford them.

Even the weight loss companies understand this and they’re scrambling to stay in business by offering versions of these drugs not approved by the FDA. Whatever your opinion is on this, remember there’s a company out there making money off your desire to lose body fat— a lot of money.

While looking at social media, I saw an advertisement for a high-profile weight loss company. I won’t disclose which one it is. A good or bad promotion equates to a promotion, nonetheless. Anyway, the ad promoted offerings of a compounded GLP-1 drug as part of their new and improved weight loss program. People can lose even more weight faster than ever before, blah, blah, blah. So, they thought putting sharps into the hands of untrained individuals (without diabetes) to give themselves injections using needles was a good idea, but I digress.

Then I browsed the comment section. What I found was surprising, yet it wasn’t. Most already know that weight loss is temporary. The range of responses included life-timers who started dieting again using old notes when their weight went up, those who wanted the old program said they needed the one-on-one counseling, and others who declared they were not falling for the dieting hype anymore.

Overall, the commenters were blunt about the company adding medication. One said they thought the weight loss program was great but hated the constant changes and gave up. They said it seemed like a way to make more money, “I’m over it!” Another stated they lost respect for the company when they started prescribing drugs, “Everything you preached is not true now.”

The commonality was disillusionment with a company that always promoted food modifications and exercise. With the addition of medication, it became obvious to some commenters that the old advice wasn’t working. This didn’t jive with what they thought they bought into.

Go deep on why you want to change the body you have.

If you have strong feelings of guilt and shame around your body image and food, you deserve to pause and discover what’s going on inside. Do you find yourself:

Unable to be flexible with food availability during family gatherings or unfamiliar environments
Following specific rigid food rules that cause you to skip a meal if it doesn’t follow the parameters
Avoiding hunger cues after missing meals to control weight or eating large amounts of food after a period of restriction
Spending most of the day thinking about food or your body
Feeling so much anxiety that it is difficult to meet your nutritional needs

If your thoughts and feelings are getting in the way of the positive intentions in your life, it’s time to take heed. Some things you can do:

Stop watching social media influencers and TV commercials about health and weight loss
Distract yourself by doing something you’ve been putting off for a while
Talk to someone. Find a dietitian and a therapist specializing in disordered eating. If your behavior concerns you and those around you, it’s already past the time to do something about it.

Don’t ignore the signs. Some folks can shake things off like a little weight gain while others can’t. It’s okay to ask for help if you feel you need it.

Treat yourself with kindness. Eating what you prefer, rather than following someone else’s advice can still lead to positive outcomes.

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