New Resources for Nutrition Educators

WEB SITE

Spend Smart. Eat Smart. IowaState University Extension, 2011. Website resource for families looking to eathealthfully on a budget. Iowa StateUniversity Extension, 2150 BeardshearHall, Ames, IA 50011-2046. Available atno cost at http://www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsavings. Accessed January 3,2011.

The Web site Spend Smart. Eat Smartpromotes 3 easy steps to healthful meals.The material focuses on the areas of‘‘Plan’’ (reduce your food expenses byplanning before shopping), ‘‘Shop’’ (tipsto find nutritious items and save at thestore), and ‘‘Eat’’ (save time and moneywhen eating out or at home).

Spend Smart. Eat Smart has 3 easysteps to healthful meals. Step #1(Plan) guides readers through aprocessof comparing what they are spendingnow with howmuch food should costfor the family, planning a menu, mak-ing a shopping list, and where andhow to buy food. Step #2 (Shop) high-lights shopping tips and unit pricingand has an interactive game designedto test skills. Step #3 (Eat) has tipsabout restaurants, organizing thekitchen, quick meals, and reducingfood waste. There are more than 100recipes.

This Web site is a great new re-source. Partially funded by the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture’sSupplemental Nutrition AssistanceProgram, there is a wealth of informa-

Inclusion of any material in this section does notNutrition Education. Evaluative comments contauthors. Review abstracts are either prepared byliterature. Prices quoted are those provided by tsubmitted. They may not be current when the ra complimentary copy of the resource as part ofJ Nutr Educ Behav. 2011;43:140.e7�2011 SOCIETY FOR NUTRITION EDUC

Journal of Nutrition Education and Behav

tion aimed at consumers who receivethose benefits. However, anyonewho eats can profit from some timespent on the Web site. I was pleasedwith the great look and easy naviga-tion. The home page captures interestwith rolling slides. The pictures ofhappy people and cute kids makereaders want to investigate more.

There is a Spend Smart blog inwhich Peggy, the blogger for thissite, gives pointers about slowcookers, thrifty holiday meals, andother timely topics. There are overa hundred recipes with nutrition in-formation, and more than 25 includevideos. There is a link for recipeswith Spanish translation, but it ap-pears to have a bug. It took me awhileto find the tag to click, which waslocated at the bottom of the sheet.

imply endorsement by the Society forained in the reviews reflect the views of thethe reviewer or extracted from the producthe publishers at the time materials wereeview is published. Reviewers receivethe review process.

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ior � Volume 43, Number 2, 2011

Instead of bringing up a recipe inSpanish, it looped back to the list ofrecipes available. Fortunately, there isan Ask a Question link at the top ofthe front page, and experts are quickwith answers.

In Step #3 (Eat), there is a link to in-formation about how long to keepfood. There is a series of video clipsdone by a professor from Californiathat has good information, but in or-der to get to it, you have to watchand listen to a 30-second commercialfor products and services that maynot be of interest.

Readers would be wise to visit theSpend Smart. Eat Smart Web site.Only a small portion of the materialis specific to Iowa, and overall, it hasexcellent information and great eyeappeal and navigability. There area few bugs to work out with this re-source, but it is new and has somereal pros with great credibility stand-ing behind it.

Patti S. Landers, PhD, RD, University ofOklahoma Health Sciences Center, De-partment of Nutritional Sciences, 801 NE13th St, College of Health Building, 469Oklahoma City, OK 73190-3042

doi: 10.1016/j.jneb.2010.12.004

Cite this article as Landers PS.Spend Smart. Eat Smart [New Re-sources for Nutrition Educators].J Nutr Educ Behav. 2011;43:140.e7.

140.e7