Dietitians

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In a message dated 6/1/02 8:44:55 PM, writes:

<< who find it hard to go against the grain >>

Kris,

Pun intended I presume.

I am in graduate school in nutrition at California State University at

Northridge (CSUN). Funny you should mention that RDs are afraid to lose their

jobs if they opening espoused NT. In one of my first courses in nutrition at

CSUN, a professor who assumed we all wanted to be RDs handed us out the rules

and regs of being an RD according to the ADA -- and she specifically

underlined a section that warned that any deviance from the accepted diet

protocols of the ADA would be grounds to have one's license revoked. So much

for intellectual honesty. Most of the people who become RDs, believe it or

not, are not really all that interested in nutrition as a science. For the

most part, they see becoming an RD as a ticket into a job -- much like being

a nurse. Even my fellow students at the graduate level are not particularly

passionate about nutrition -- for the most part they already have their RD

status and are getting a Master's to improve their careers.

One of the problems with University programs in nutrition is that quite often

they are associated with food science. Now food science should be fascinating

-- unfortunately what food science is all about is food technology, and thus

the aim of the program is to produce food technologists who will work in the

American food product industry and concoct more weird stuff. During a Food

science course I had to take we learned all about so called 'standard

products' -- an optional project that we could do in the course for instance

was to make a 'standard muffin' -- the recipe was white flour, hydrogenated

fat (even dietitians call it plastic fat), sugar, etc. I told the teacher I

would make a healthy muffin which would then become the new standard. She

didn't appreciate my humor.

During initiation meetings the food science people like to point out to us

is that food science graduates make a whole lot more money that RDs or

nutritionists ever will.

I think Sally should start a school to teach people real nutrition!!

Namaste, Liz