About Us

Gloria Hansen has a degree in Foods and Nutrition from Iowa State University.  Her career includes research, recipe development, food photography, writing and distributing educational materials for food manufacturers and their associations.

Creating menus that would provide the RDA (recommended daily allowances) from normal foods was an essential part of the publications.  There was always proof to back up the statements, but getting the right amount of micronutrients daily was certainly not as easy as the readers were led to believe.

The message is everywhere -- get your nutrition from a variety of healthy foods, but take a multi-vitamin as extra insurance for the days when you don't make the right choices. 

Unfortunately, for many the message gets translated to mean that as long as you take a vitamin pill, you don't need to pay any attention to the advice about making good choices.  No one bothers to explain why the experts keep talking about getting most of the nutrients from real food.

A major problem with the "pill" idea is a failure to emphasize the human body's dependence on plants.  Our digestive system is not effective absorbing inorganic minerals.  During their growing process plants take the inorganic minerals from the soil and convert them into an organic product that can be absorbed and used by humans.

Emerging research is showing that foods have a variety of nutrients -- many are just being discovered.  No one has yet learned how to put the right combination of nutrients, in the correct ratio, into a pill as nature does with real foods.

No one knows everything about nutrition!   All anyone can say is, based on our present knowledge and understanding, these are the facts. 

I well remember growers begging us to give them a reason other than color that beets should be on school lunch menus.  They were not good sources of known vitamins or minerals.  Now, beets are gaining attention because the color indicates some very special phytonutrients that our bodies need.

Yet to be understood are the differences in how bodies use the food.  Certainly, there are basic facts that apply to most people.  There are a lot of differences as well  -- another example of the one size does not fit all.

The more we learn, the more we know how much there is yet to be learned.  Human beings are not test tubes in a research laboratory.  The whole person must be considered.