Build Up Dietitians Newsletter - 3/8/24

RD gifts in the Amazon store, Spotlight: Melanie Trecek-King, March Subscription/Donation Deal - Academy Foundation, "Sacred Cow" film review, How to Negotiate for a higher salary...and more!

🛒Our Amazon store has lots of dietitian-centric gifts we’ve picked out…perfect for National Nutrition Month, RDday, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. Click HERE

💡Spotlight on: Melanie Trecek-King

Melanie Trecek-King became passionate about helping her students to think more critically about what they were seeing in the media. This propelled her to start “Thinking is Power” as an on-line resource.

Social media: Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, YouTube all @ThinkingPowers
Website: www.ThinkingIsPower.com

Associate Professor of Biology, Massasoit Community College

Director of Education, Mental Immunity Project

Q. What's one logical fallacy you see used most often in the food/nutrition space? 

“… the appeal to nature, which asserts that something is better/safer/more effective because it’s perceived to be natural. We often fall for appeals to nature because of our psychological tendency to associate “natural” with goodness and purity…whether something is natural or not tells us literally nothing about whether it’s safe or effective. In fact, some natural substances, like botulinum and arsenic, are highly toxic…
Appeals to nature come in many forms, such as: all natural, organic, non-GMO, clean, free of chemicals or artificial ingredients, and foods that are whole, raw, and/or unprocessed.”

Q. Why do you think it's important for dietitians to speak out against mis/disinformation and pseudoscience? 

“We all want to be healthy. We also recognize that diet is key. But understanding the biochemical and physiological processes involved takes expertise that most don’t have the time to acquire. The food and diet industries fill that void with false hopes and promises. Dietitians play a key role in helping the public understand how misinformation can fool them into making unhealthy and expensive choices.”

📝March Subscription/Donation Deal

benefits the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics FOUNDATION

check out the offer HERE https://buildupdietitians.substack.com/a466f293

🤝Oncology Nutrition Symposium - Build Up Mini Meet Up

If you’re going to the Oncology Nutrition Symposium this April in Atlanta, we’re doing a Build Up Mini Meet Up hosted by Julie Lanford (aka ‘The Cancer Dietitian’). Be sure and RSVP to builduprdns@gmail.com to hold your seat!

💲💲Negotiating for Higher Pay Rates

Without a doubt, one of the biggest issues in the world of dietetics is low pay rates in some clinical areas.

Here’s an encouraging post from our Build Up Dietitians CLINICAL group:

How did she do it?

“I collected pay data from RDs at hospitals in my area. Gathering evidence that we were paid less…. We also made a few HR complaints because we were left out of cost-of-living adjustments ...I think the key was all of us fighting together…The moment I got everyone to fight with me, the CFO and COO were sitting in our office fielding our questions. Our lead also brought up the idea to compare us to SLPs. And they accepted that… we wore them down.”

Some other responses:

Amie R. “We unionized along with SLP, MSW, and a variety of others. Currently working on new contracts.”

Louise S. “…we fought to be paid at market value as the other large hospitals in our area (main reason we had turnover was because of that lower pay, not work culture). It took 5-6 years and a lot of advocacies from our clinical manager, to receive a significant increase in pay.”

Tammy B. “It took me 8 months and a lot of paperwork to get a 4% raise. I used data from the AND (Academy) salary surveys. Also, I presented information from Glassdoor to show what other companies in the area were offering RDNs... I was also relentless. Pestering my director and manager every few weeks to talk to HR on my behalf. I refused to give up.”

🎬🍿“Sacred Cow” Film - a review

(This film originally came out in 2021 but is making a reappearance.)

TL; DR Bottom Line: It’s too bad that this film turned out to be more “shockumentary” than documentary. It would be helpful to see more films/documentaries that paint agriculture in an accurate and positive light (👏try “Food Evolution” and “Farmland”) without the use of fearmongering or negativity and throwing other farmers and producers under the bus.

While some in the ag and farming community may celebrate this film, (if you’re one of those people be sure and look at who supported it!) it will likely create more divisiveness within the ag community, make more people distrustful of food in the supermarket, and foment anger about certain types of farmers as well as agricultural and scientific advances. It will be self-affirming to “eaters” with higher income who can afford to shop at specialty meat markets and ignores the fact that many people in the U.S (and around the world) struggle with food availability and food insecurity.

Positives: There’s beautiful footage of animals grazing on farms around the world. There are testimonials from photogenic young farmers hopeful about their future to stay on the land, grow crops and raise animals in environmentally sustainable ways (aka “regenerative farming”) —-but unfortunately that was mostly the second half of the film.

Not So Positive/Negatives: The first half of the film was populated with logical fallacies (Appeal to Nature/Natural and Appeal to Tradition), use of fearmongering words, and familiar images of large-scale farms, food manufacturing facilities and fast-food to illustrate tropes of extremes and create a negative impression of agriculture, farming and food production. Much of the same language and wording you’d see in any given anti-meat Netflix “shockumentary” are apparent in this film, but this time from a “pro'“meat perspective.

FUN GAME: As you watch this film, play your own version of bingo (or a drinking game) and listen for how many times these words/phrases are used: processed, fake, cheap, modern food, industrial food/farming, chemicals, monoculture, science/scientist, depleted soil…just in case you have any illusions about the real point of view and the position of the film on modern agriculture and food.

(Also, see how many inaccuracies you can spot about a vegan diet, school meals and claiming school meals or general nutrition guidance still goes by the Food Guide Pyramid.)

Key Characters - While there are certainly well-known and qualified experts quoted, there are also some odd choices. Robb Wolf (former biochemist and self-proclaimed “health expert”) best known for his books on the paleo diet, is one of the producers, so he has quite a bit of airtime. Functional medicine doctor Mark Hyman and functional “nutritionist” Chris Kresser (also a big proponent of the paleo diet) appear prominently. Joel Salatin of Polyface farm is also featured, a curious choice after Salatin was criticized in 2020 not only for racist remarks but also for being anti-vax and flouting Virginia’s mandates about large gatherings during the height of the Pandemic.

Supporters-Listed as supporters are a number of primal and paleo food brands (predictable) as well as the Weston Price Foundation (known for being anti-vax, anti-fluoride and anti-GMO and apparently with a connection to Joel Salatin) and an odd sketchy Nutritional Therapy Association ($7200 tuition) which seems to be some sort of functional and holistic nutrition program.