Browse Food Stories - Page 16

Agriculture — Georgia’s top industry — was featured prominently this week at stops on the University of Georgia Griffin and Tifton campuses during the university’s annual New Faculty Tour.

For the past 20 years, Spalding County has been without a University of Georgia Extension Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) agent. Sweda filled that gap last December when she joined the local Extension staff. Wade Hutcheson, coordinator of the Spalding County Extension office, said the position was eliminated during a time period when the state was undergoing drastic budget cuts.

Twenty-six years ago, the University of Georgia hired Mike Doyle to create and lead a research center focused on detecting, controlling and eliminating foodborne pathogens in America’s food supply. This month, Doyle retired from his position as director of the world-renowned Center for Food Safety on the UGA Griffin campus.

Food safety research usually involves analyzing live populations of foodborne pathogens like Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli, but University of Georgia food scientist Henk den Bakker fights pathogens by developing computer software. 

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Family and Consumer Sciences agents, like Rockdale County’s MaryBeth Hornbeck, teach people to cook healthier meals. Thanks to a grant from the Hospital Authority of Rockdale County, Hornbeck now travels across the county with a portable kitchen.

Increasing a child’s exposure to a new food increases the likelihood the child will consume it and become healthier in the process, according to MaryBeth Hornbeck, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agent in Rockdale County.  To encourage children between the ages of 2 and 6 to eat produce, Hornbeck says parents should be vigilant and introduce new fruits and vegetables to their children.

Aggrey Gama, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Griffin campus, is crafting a drink that would deliver the nutrition and tastiness of peanuts to consumers in his home country of Malawi.

University of Georgia food microbiologist Xiangyu Deng’s work in the emerging field of bioinformatics led to his selection as a Creative Research Medal winner for 2017.

In Cobb County, Georgia, Terri Carter’s job with University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is to educate residents on proper nutrition. As a self-declared “proud woman of the South,” Carter, a UGA Extension Family and Consumer Sciences county program assistant, has found a unique way to teach nutrition and a history lesson at the same time. Carter’s love of the South and her heritage led her to develop the “Food History of the South” program.