Eat, Read, Learn | February 2025

NS Dietitians: Check out the DNNS Facebook page for more new foods, thought-provoking reads, and continuing education opportunities – and please share your own contributions as well!

If you have comments or suggestions, you can reach Meredith at meredith.lapp@gmail.com

EAT – Buy Local options in Nova Scotia

This week, ongoing trade volatility has meant a renewed and immediate consumer desire to purchase locally-sourced produce and food items, both to show support for our own farmers and makers, and to potentially avoid future prohibitive costs of imported foods. Over the coming weeks, dietitians can be integral supports to clients/patients in navigating how to support local food systems while still respecting budgetary and nutritional limitations they may have. One option may be the innovative Wolfville Farmer’s Market To Go (WFM2GO) program, which allows consumers to fill an online shopping cart

with specific farmers’ market items from a wide variety of vendors – produce, meats, prepared foods, home goods, personal hygiene products – and opt to pick up their order at various neighbourhood locations across the province,

including several pick-up points within HRM. The provincial government’s buy-local incentive program, Nova Scotia Loyal, is also offering 10% off WFM2GO orders with code NSLOYAL10. Share your tips for supporting Nova Scotia foodways in the DNNS Facebook group this month!

READ/LEARN – Even water-soluble “benign” vitamins can cause toxicity in unregulated products

In the December 2023 volume of Eat, Read, Learn, I highlighted the new Supplement Facts label required on products supplemented with vitamins and minerals, such as energy drinks and functional foods. It’s important to consider the possibility of cumulative over-supplementation from these types of foods when assessing a client/patient’s physiological complaints: for example, this January 2025 article in The Guardian tells the story of an Australian man in his 40s whose hand cramping and pins-and-needles

sensations were diagnosed as magnesium deficiency by his family doctor, who prescribed a magnesium supplement in addition to his pre-existing multivitamin. Then, “a blood test recommended by his dietitian showed his levels of [vitamin] B6 were 36 times the recommended range” [emphasis

mine ]. Both supplements contained high levels of Vitamin B6, and the man was suffering from peripheral neuropathy resulting from B6 toxicity. There have been at least 80 other cases of B6 toxicity in Australia from similar cases of unintentional over-supplementation.

Follow the DNNS Facebook group for more new foods, thought-provoking reads, and continuing education opportunities – and please share your own contributions as well!

Curated by Meredith Lapp, RD

If you have a blog, book, or online course that you would like to share with your fellow network members, please forward information to Meredith at meredith.lapp@gmail.com