Program gives green light to healthy living

  • Published
  • By Roy Utley
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  In an effort to help customers at the Dyess Air Force Base Dining Facility navigate the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid, the Air Force has installed some traffic signals to help Airmen make healthier choices.

The Air Force's "Go For Green" nutrition education program was initiated to provide visual cues to help Airmen quickly identify the menu items that are most nutritious and have a positive impact on an Airman's performance.

A menu item with a green tag indicates it is nutritionally good, while yellow means it is a little less nutritious but can be consumed occasionally and red means it is high-fat or calorie and should be picked infrequently.

"It was initiated by the Army to find a quick and easy way for their soldiers to find the healthiest food items. So, at a glance, you would see red, yellow and green," said Master Sgt. Barbara Brooks, 7th Force Support Squadron Longhorn Dining Facility manager.

The new system is a result of an ongoing effort to help Airmen meet their healthy living requirements.

"(In the past) we tried programs with nutritional facts and calorie-counting and that kind of thing," Brooks said. "It was just too time consuming for most of the Airmen to sit there and count the calories or look at the facts and figure out how it worked for them. So it didn't work. You have to use something that is quick and easy for them to understand."

In addition to assigning color-codes to standard items, dining facility staff are working to develop healthier items by substituting or reducing the use of high-fat and high-calorie items or cooking methods.

"We are looking at trying to make most of our items healthier. (The new program) takes into account how we prepare the food and that makes it healthier as well. We are looking into changing our recipes and some of the ingredients we use in our recipes to make the food items healthier," Brooks said. "We're going to be frying less food and using more steaming and baking versus frying. That will change the levels of food making them more yellows and greens versus reds and yellows right now."

The changes to the tags have not gone unnoticed.

"We have had people ask questions about what the tags mean," commented Brooks.

Airmen who want more information regarding what classifies a food item a specific color can pick up a pamphlet at the dining facility or the Health and Wellness Center.

"We have pamphlets that break it down into more detail such as caloric value, sodium content, sugar content, how many carbohydrates, etc.," Brooks said. 

In the end, any education program is only as good as the information gleaned by the consumer. The "Go For Green" initiative is another step in empowering Airmen to live a healthy lifestyle and be fit to fight.

"We're here to help the base eat healthy. If they have any suggestions, please let us know," Brooks said. "Basically, it's up to the individual but we are going to do everything we can to help them out."

Although traffic signals have been installed in the dining facility, no one has to worry about getting a traffic ticket for occasionally passing on the red.