It’s a new year, so maybe it’s time to clean out your pantry and refrigerator. Whether you have a diagnosis that means gluten-free meals are your new norm or you just want to shed a few pounds, you don’t have to go far for assistance.
In-house experts at Tri-Village area grocery stores – including Giant Eagle Market District and Whole Foods – have your back when it comes to food-related challenges.
Giant Eagle Market District – Kingsdale
Registered dietician Paula Monaco works full-time at the Kingsdale Market District, leading classes, assisting a chef in the demonstration kitchen and helping customers.
“Twice a week, you can usually find me in the demo kitchen paired with a chef kind of doing recipe sampling,” says Monaco, describing a pomegranate hummus she and the chef worked on during a recent demonstration.
Monaco also leads free in-aisle excursions and store tours on a variety of topics such as heart health, diabetes and weight loss. Tour schedules are posted at www.marketdistrict.com and those interested can sign up to participate.
“We meet in front of the store, we shop the departments and select foods that (fit) with whatever we’re … talking about,” Monaco says.
Monaco, who earned her dietetics degree from Bowling Green State University, says she enjoys educating the most. The store offers group classes and one-on-one nutrition counseling, both on a fee basis. Among the groups are a 10-week weight loss class (the next one begins mid-January), a general nutrition course and a six-week diabetes survival series.
“The weight loss and the diabetes are my favorite, because it’s a kind of support group, especially the diabetes class,” Monaco says. “They might feel alone, so if I can get a group of five to 10 people together and educate them about diabetes, they also form these friendships. It’s the same with the weight loss class as well.”
Each week of the weight loss class covers a different subject and features a hands-on activity. Some included topics are portion control, dining out and menu reading, and meal planning – though Monaco shies away from providing full weekly meal plans.
“I feel that if you just give a person (a plan for) seven days and say, ‘This is what you’re supposed to be eating,’ they’ll stick to it for seven days and then they’re not going to know where to go from there, so we work more long term,” she says.
When she’s not at a scheduled one-on-one session or teaching a class, Monaco is frequently stationed at a kiosk near the pharmacy.
“You’d be shocked at the number of people who just come up to me with random nutrition questions that they’ve been dying to ask someone, and they’re totally stoked to see a dietician to get their answers,” she says.
Whole Foods Upper Arlington
Erin Ford, Whole Foods UA’s healthy eating specialist, used to be an animal trainer, but she was spending so much time helping friends and relatives shop and eat more healthfully that she decided she might as well get paid for it, she says, half joking.
Ford, who has a certificate in health coaching from the Institute for Integrated Nutrition, spends the majority of her time assisting customers who come in with doctors’ orders for new diets. Common diagnoses requiring diet changes are diabetes and Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease.
“They may have just gotten diagnosed with something and their doctors give them an idea of what they should be eating or what they shouldn’t be eating, so we help them kind of figure out what those things are,” Ford says, emphasizing that she never gives medical advice. “We provide them with recipes and we have classes as well to help them do some easy, healthful cooking. The bulk of it (is) just pointing them in the right direction so they can have some sort of guideline.”
Typically, Ford starts by taking people to the produce section.
“One of the biggest things I like to tell people is try to incorporate greens into every meal,” she says. “If you just try to incorporate greens into breakfast, lunch and dinner, then you’re already increasing your nutritional intake.”
Sometimes, even giving them one recipe is enough to get her clients started and keep them from feeling overwhelmed by a change in diet, Ford says. For example, during the holidays, she demonstrated how to make a sweet potato pie by using soaked chia seeds instead of eggs and adding blended cashews for creaminess.
“You’ve already bulked up the nutritional density. With those chia seeds, you have omega-3s and you have more fiber. The cashews are going to be a healthy fat as opposed to adding in butter,” Ford says. “It was more like a custard. It was delicious.”
Ford and Whole Foods also offer 28-day challenges that meet once a week for four weeks, including one based on the Engine 2 Diet, a vegan eating plan. Some of the classes charge a nominal fee – the Engine 2 Diet challenge has a fee that includes the cost of a copy of the book – but many are free.
For a full listing of classes, visit www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/upperarlington.
Lisa Aurand is editor of Tri-Village Magazine. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
