Prospectus

Issue date: 3/18/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Chrissie McKenney Curried chickpeas pack a lot of flavor and add "a lot of color" to the plate, which is a great visual guideline to eating whole foods. Tune in to PCTV to catch how to cook up this easy recipe (and many more). The Prospectus will feature the recipes after the programs air, so stay tuned!

March is National Nutrition Month. This is a national campaign sponsored by the American Dietetic Association (ADA) to promote nutrition awareness and healthy eating habits. The timing couldn't be more perfect; it arrives just as your enthusiasm for those diet-and-lifestyle-improving New Year's resolutions starts to fade, but before you start worrying about what you are going to look like at the beach this summer.
This year's theme is "Eat Right," and to celebrate National Nutrition Month (NNM), students in the Dietary Management and Dietetic Technician programs here at Parkland (this writer included) will be presenting a few healthy, meatless meal ideas on PCTV (Tequila Fettuccine Pasta, Asparagus-Spinach Pasta, Portobello Mushroom Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries, and Curried Chickpeas). The meals are meatless for two reasons: 1) A plant-based diet lowers your risk for chronic disease, and 2) It is good for the environment.
This year, in addition to being NNM, March is also the month that The Parkland College Wellness Task Force has chosen for their "Go Green" campaign. The Task Force wants to emphasize that it takes more energy to raise animals for food than it does to grow vegetables. (The Environmental Defense Fund in New York (www.edf.org) estimates that if everyone in America had one meat-free meal each week, it would be like taking 5 million cars off the road. One meat-free day per American would be like taking 8 million cars off the road.) This means that reducing the amount of meat you eat each day is an easy way to "Go Green".
The Parkland College Wellness Task Force, according to Lori Wendt, an online support specialist in the Department of Distance and Virtual Learning and a Task Force member, "was initiated in 2008 by Parkland's Human Resources Department, the Center for Excellence and the Wellness Center in order to develop and maintain year round wellness programs/events/seminars in order to promote emotional, physical, social/environmental and financial well-being of all of Parkland's faculty, staff, and students."

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