Free nutrition education classes at area grocery stores help customers in their quest to eat healthy

CEDAR RAPIDS - When it comes to getting healthy, taking a close look at what you are eating is important, and people often place certain foods off limits in their quest. So it comes as no surprise that when Hy-Vee dietitian Christy Frese gives nutrition education store tours, she often feels as if she is 'legalizing food” for her customers.

The tour - which is a service free to Hy-Vee patrons - is a walk through the grocery chain with a dietitian who provides tips on healthy eating, where items are located in the store and what people can do to maximize their nutrition.

For Frese, it's all about meeting people where they are at.

'What I hope for when people are done with the tour is they feel like, ‘Wow, there is so many different types of food I can eat,'” Frese said. 'Because when we think about healthy eating - I think for a lot of people - they think of it as a restriction.

'They think about all the things they can't eat.”

But with Frese, who starts her tour in the produce aisle and works around the store, she wants people to leave knowing how to shop smarter and better, which could be as simple as pointing out what to look at when it comes to labels.

Standing in aisle two of the Edgewood Hy-Vee store where Frese is based, she points at the different applesauce available - showing preference to the portion cups and pointing out the difference between unsweetened applesauce and regular applesauce.

'There is 17 (grams of sugar) in this one (the regular applesauce) and there is 11 in this one (the unsweetened applesauce),” Frese said. 'The 11 is what is naturally there from the apples - its natural sugar. So that means in the other one, we have 6 grams of sugar in the little container. Doing the math in her head, Frese noted there is about 1.5 teaspoons of added sugar in each cup.

'So that's one of those things that we talk about: reading labels and making choices,” Frese said.

The tour is individualized, and Frese said it can be personalized to a broad range of people, including families, college students, those learning to shop on a new diet or needing to make a lifestyle change through food.

'When they come see a Hy-Vee dietitian and go on one of these tours, we're going to show them all of the things they can have. It's a very positive experience,” Frese said.

The tour, which Hy-Vee offered to customers even before Frese started 11 years ago, allows patrons to receive a detailed tour of the store matched with their dietary needs - and it's all about options.

'Someone might be eating oatmeal but they really like their white English muffins sometimes, and that's fine. Again, it's very individualized. It's very for that person,” Frese said.

Heather Koranda, a coach at Farrells eXtreme Bodyshaping in Cedar Rapids, said she likes to bring her fitness group on a nutrition tour because it can help them broaden their range in food and nutrition ideas.

'It's really good, different,” Koranda said, noting she has taken the tour four or five times and each time she has learned something new.

Frese said a common myth about eating healthy she hears is that you can only shop the exterior of the store, which in Hy-Vee's case is the produce section, meat, dairy, bakery and health market. But Frese wants customers to know, it's OK to shop inside the aisles.

'We really make a trip all around the store. And that's one of the things - I think of it as a myth - that the perimeter of the store is where all of the healthy foods are,” she said. 'There's a lot of healthy foods in the aisles, as well. You've got whole grain cereals, oatmeal, whole grain pasta, cooking oils, tuna.”

Tours are by appointment only. For more information visit Hy-Vee online at hy-vee.com.

l Comments: (319) 368-8531; alexandra.connor@thegazette.com