Day 12: Continuing with ICD 2012

The last full day of the conference started off with an awesome breakfast sponsored by the Australian Mushroom Growers.  Of course they talked about the wonderful health benefits, like vitamin D.  If you don't know, some mushrooms have a good amount of vitamin D.  When grown in darkness they do not get the sunlight and therefore none of the vitamin D, but growers have learned (even in the US) that they can grown in the dark and then expose them to UV light for a very short time to get the vitamin D to be produced in the mushrooms.  Apparently growing in the dark is cheaper.  At least they figured out that UV light does the trick.

Back to the breakfast!  So yummy!  A well known chef (or so I think as he has a cookbook out now) prepared some foods for us.  This was the line as we headed out to get the delicious food.  

This was a dish with greens, lentils and mushrooms.  Ok, I may be wrong on the lentils...it was really early in the morning and my memory is a little hazy of the early morning stuff.

On top he placed some tortillas strips.

Here I am with Charmain, enjoying the food with a lovely view of the harbor.

Then they served this amazing portabello dish, with some cheese and more of that green veggie that they said was found in Australia.  I did not recognize the name, so I think that is why I can't remember it. 

They had cute center pieces.

And the bags they gave us were super cute too.

One of the plenary speakers in the morning was Sylvia Escott-Stump.  If you are a dietitian, there is a good chance you know who she is or at least have heard her name before.  She is a past president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, but even if you are not a member, you have probably used a textbook she has authored, Krause's Food and Nutrition Therapy.  I have heard Sylvia speak before and she certainly knows how to captivate an audience.  She explains things very well, which is probably why she writes the most popular/commonly used nutrition textbook book out there.

Her presentation was on Nutritional Genetics.  She gave a very nice presentation on this and explained how realistically we can base some nutritional recommendations on information about certain genes, specifically with folate.  Here are some of her slides.  There is no way I could put it as nicely as she did!

After the session, Charmain and I were on the hunt for AODA members and supports to take photos with.  Here we are with Becky Dorner, another big name in nutrition.  If you have been an RD for a while now, there is a good chance you recognize her name.  She is extremely nice and approachable!  I have heard her speak previously and always been a fan, and only met her briefly before, so I was lucky to get a chance to spend some more time speaking with her.

Speaking of people that really make an impact in the profession, here I am with Charmain, along with Ethan Bergman, the current Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics President.

Finally, we managed to get us all together for a photo.  Here is Charmain (AODA IT Chair and Hong Kong Country Rep), Ethan Bergman (Academy President), Sylvia Escott-Stump (Academy Past President), Becky Dorner (Academy Board of Directors), Beatriz Dykes (AODA member/supporter), and me.  Yes, I have a title too.  In case you don't know, I am the AODA Nominating Committee Chair.  I also hold some other positions in some other groups, but this was specific to AODA.

Lunch later that day was sandwiches and couscous with potato salad.  It was pretty good.

I happily enjoyed a diet Sprite, which is a treat for me.

I also picked up some interesting juices to try out.  They were good to take back to my hotel so that if I was thirsty I would have something could around to enjoy.

After lunch I got closed out of one session.  There were so many people standing out of the door that I couldn't even get close or hear anything.  I took that time to take a little break and get a wifi connection and try and do some work.  I was still frustrated with the internet in my hotel.

But, I made sure to show up early to the next session because the one I selected was one I really wanted to hear.  It was the most relevant to my (new) job.  Job?  Did I say (new) job?  Yes, I am now working part time at WIC.  Well, I was working there before, but that was part time temporary, and now it is part time but permanent.  I am really excited and looking forward to it.  Naturally, since this session was on breast feeding, I decided this was a good place to invest my time and learning.  

There were a few speakers, and they were all very good, talking about nutrition and breast feeding and breast feeding initiatives.  Here are just a few slides that I took pictures of.

You can see they have some pretty good goals here to work towards.

It looks like the reasons were on the decline (what mom stated was a factor for her choice to breast feed), but it looks like there was a slight increase in the category of advised by health professional. 

After this session wrapped up, I headed to a session presented by Dr. Diane Radler, Dr. Riva Touger Decker, and Naomi Trostler (whom I know from AODA) and the title of this workshop was- Nutrition Focused Physical Assessment: A Novel Multimedia Training Approach for Practice.  So, what was so neat about this session?  Dr. Radler is my professor this term for a course I am taking at UMDNJ, and Dr. Touger-Decker is the Chair of the Nutritional Sciences Dept at UMDNJ, where I am currently a DCN student (more on that another time).  Plus, this was something they worked on with Naomi in Israel, so it was really neat to see their collaboration.  

The workshop was about putting a multimedia training together to collaborate with RDs internationally, and in this case it was in Israel.  They used all kinds of media to conduct the training, and then went there in person to do a little workshop and train them.  The training was to do an oral screen as part of a nutrition focused physical exam (or assessment).  There are many links to dental and nutrition status, so looking in the mouth is important, but many RDs are not doing this.  It is not meant to replace what a dentist would do, but rather give the RD clues as to what is going on nutritionally and perhaps why a patient is not eating well.

Here is one slide just to give you an idea what is meant by Nutrition Focused Physical Exam (NFPE) or Assessment (NFPA).  If you are working in dietetics/clinical nutrition, have you heard of this before?

I took one more picture of Naomi presenting.

Right after the session a group of UMDNJ related individuals joined up for some drinks and light appetizers.  It was a great experience for me because I was able to meet face to face with not only my professor for a class I have right now, but also the Chair of the department, along with other faculty members and a couple of other students.  I even met with a Japanese nutrition professor that collaborates with UMDNJ too, which is fantastic because I live in Japan too!  Living in Japan and mostly taking classes online makes it sometimes hard to feel connected to the actual school department or program, so this social gathering let me really feel how real this program is and how lucky I am to be a part of this learning experience and working towards completing the DCN degree (a clinical doctorate, as opposed to a PhD which is research based-and nearly impossible for me here in Japan).  It was like things finally clicked and everything felt real and all the pieces where coming together.  I could finally put names to faces.  Plus, everyone was so nice and welcoming, so I really felt like part of the group.

It just wouldn't have been complete if I didn't take a picture of our food!  I split some calamari rings and honey chili bread with others in the group.  Actually, I am about 99% sure that the person I split this with is a guest lecturer this week in the other class that I am taking this term (I am taking CAM and Advanced Clinical Nutrition- more on those later).

Since dinner was more like light appetizers, and I had work to try and do, I went all out and tried this raspberry lemon cheese cake with chocolate dipping sauce on the side.  Talk about a tasty late night snack!  All it took was 3 bites and I was good.  I nibbled on it a little more the next night, but it was so much that I never got around to finishing it.  I did, however, save the chocolate and dip my strawberries in it.

Well, that does it for another day in Australia, and the last full day of the conference.  After I finish posting all of my Australia stuff, I will do a little recap of the conference.

QUESTIONS:  Are you currently a student?  Did you know that mushrooms are a good source of vitamin D (if exposed to UV)?