Nutrition Science Department Contributes to National Conversations on Ultra-Processed Foods, Culinary Medicine

Following presentations at prestigious national conferences, Russell Sage College Nutrition Science Department Chair and Associate Professor Sonya Hauser, Ph.D., shares how her department’s research into ultra-processed foods in nutrition programs and culinary medicine education is contributing to community health. 

Yes! The goal of this research was to both quantify the percentage of ultra-processed foods in federal nutrition programs and to highlight some best practices among programs that have found ways to provide less processed alternatives.  

What we found were some small, practical changes that programs could make, often in a cost-neutral way, to improve the quality of their menu offerings. 

I think a lot of these programs feel overwhelmed and really stuck between the mandates to lower UPFs, as well as the genuine desire to serve healthy foods, and the reality of their funding constraints. Layered on top of this is confusion around exactly what constitutes an “ultra-processed food” — there is still no federal definition or guidance on this.

Our aim was to provide some clarity for these programs, acknowledge and affirm the amazing work they’re doing in our communities, and provide them with operational knowledge and tools.

Absolutely!  We are lucky that one of our faculty, Selina Preyer-Blakney, is also a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef. She has started to incorporate some culinary medicine skills into both our food science and our community nutrition courses. She also recently led hands-on culinary medicine workshops for providers and community members titled “Plant-Powered Perimenopause” as part of our annual Nutrition Science Department spring conference. We plan systematically to expand this work both in the classroom and in the community. 

We involve students in nearly every departmental initiative, and these projects were no different. I supervise summer research interns every summer through our generous funding partnership with the United Way of the Greater Capital Region. These interns helped with summer-long data collection for the UPF study, and four department graduate assistants helped with coding and data analysis in the fall semester.  

For the culinary medicine session, students helped with recipe testing and refinement and assisted faculty in running the conference workshops.

This is a relatively new area of inquiry in the field, so we wanted to see if there were any likeminded researchers doing similar work. In our preliminary review of the published literature, we found our colleagues at Case Western Reserve had been thinking along the same lines and we reached out and scheduled a brainstorming session.  What followed from there was a great mutual partnership which has allowed all of us to expand our perspective on this area of the field. It was rewarding to jointly present the results of our work at a national conference. 

While institutions such as Cornell and Tufts have tremendous research infrastructure and resources, one of the unique strengths that Russell Sage brings to national conferences is our close connection to the communities we serve. As a smaller institution, we are often able to move more quickly from identifying a community need to developing partnerships, implementing solutions, and evaluating outcomes. Much of our work is grounded in real-world challenges facing families, schools, community organizations, and public health agencies, particularly around food insecurity, nutrition education, and access to healthy foods.

Our presentations at national conferences and publications in scientific journals reflect that community-engaged approach. For example, our work with the Capital Region Summer Meals Collaborative has focused not only on studying food access issues but also on bringing together schools, nonprofits, healthcare organizations, and government agencies to create practical solutions that improve participation in summer nutrition programs. Because our faculty and students are deeply embedded in these partnerships, we’re able to contribute insights about implementation, collaboration, and community impact that complement the larger-scale research often presented by major research universities.

I’d like to highlight that our students are not simply learning about community nutrition and public health challenges in a classroom; they are actively participating in research, program evaluation, and community initiatives alongside faculty. 

Ultimately, our presence at these national conferences demonstrates that impactful scholarship does not depend solely on the size of an institution. Russell Sage’s strength lies in our ability to build deep community relationships, engage students in meaningful experiences, and generate practical knowledge that helps improve health outcomes. That combination allows us to make valuable contributions to national conversations while staying true to our mission as a community-centered institution.

Russell Sage College is a top-three producer of nutrition degrees and certificates in New York state and the ONLY accredited nutrition program in New York’s greater Capital Region. 

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