Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Presiding: Nancy Fey-Yensan, University of Rhode Island Welcome and Introductions: The meeting began at 8:00 AM on Monday, June 4, 2007. The group was welcomed by Nancy Fey-Yensan. Bill Rice welcomed everyone to Washington DC. He introduced his colleague, Michelle Harris, who will join the project. He also introduced two UDC students (O. Jiménez and J. Lee) attending the meeting. Dr. Mary Gray, Deputy Administrator of Families, 4-H, and Nutrition for CSREES welcomed us to Washington DC. She highlighted current trends supporting the importance of nutrition research targeting older adults. She thanked us for working on this endeavor. The minutes of the 2006 Technical Meeting were reviewed and approved. Gloria Wyche-Moore joined us later in the day to welcome us to Washington. She is now the Dean of Community Outreach and Extension Services for UDC. Washington Report: Susan Welch Susan reviewed personnel changes at CSREES and provided a budget update. She described current proposals to reorganize USDA. Two of three proposals would merge CSREES with ARS. Susan mentioned that a bio-based economy is a rapidly emerging research emphasis in Washington. The American Society for Nutrition has recommended that the 2007 Farm Bill include formation of an NIH-like institute on Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition. Susan described the current NRI funding situation in Human Nutrition and Obesity and Bioactive Food Components. Nancy Fey-Yensan will chair this year's NRI research panel for Human Nutrition and Obesity. Susan also provided an update of longstanding and new multi-station projects. She encouraged us to go on online to the NIMSS system for more information. Presentation on Whole Grains: Len Marquart Len Marquart from the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota presented an overview of the current research on whole grains. He summarized the research on health benefits, types of whole grains, definition and identification of whole grain foods, labeling, and other issues. Station Reports Each station reported its activities over the past year. Hard copies of the reports were provided to meeting participants and are included in this mailing. Timeline Review: Nancy Fey-Yensan Nancy and the project group reviewed and discussed progress and changes for each experiment, objective and the timeline. Several minor changes were noted on the timeline. These changes include: add University of Connecticut to the stations listed under Objective 1, Experiment 2; Objective 2, Experiment 2 remove URI from the list of participating stations and check year 5 under Analyze Data for this experiment; Experiment 4 under Objective 2 is mislabeled and should read Experiment 5. Nancy suggested that the group would need to work on a new proposal during next years Technical Committee meeting. Dick Cook suggested we start planning during this meeting if time permitted. Nancy Cohen asked about the timeline for writing a new proposal. This project ends September 30, 2009. Susan Welch suggested we start writing in June of 2008 as we will need to submit a new proposal in December of 2008. Nancy Fey-Yensan and Cathy English shared with the group that they will continue to be involved in the project but less actively over the next year. Coupled with this review, the group discussed objectives and activities for the remaining two years of the project. Nancy asked what "products" we will complete during this project to leverage our next proposal. The group decided to write a summary paper highlighting the major issues concerning whole grains. Issues to be addressed in the paper are: science, regulatory, policy, consumer/behavioral, technologies and labeling, practice points for educators and practitioners, integration of issues, assessment, cultural preferences, and potential unintended consequences of eating more whole grains. Group members volunteered to work in subcommittees on each of these topics. Potential journals for publication were discussed. Nancy volunteered to type up the outline of the paper and send to the NE 1023 listserv. By September 1, 2007 each subgroup will review and compile relevant data, background literature and draft article components along with a first draft. The full draft will be compiled and forwarded to the entire project group for comment by Sept. 15th. Executive Committee Meeting The Executive Committee met late Monday afternoon and discussed the following: 1. Officers: - Len Marquart was nominated as the third Member at Large, 2007-2010 - Mark Kantor will serve as Chair beginning Oct. 1, 2007 2. Upcoming meetings: The 2008 meeting will be held on June 9, 10, and 11. Both URI and UNH will investigate meeting facility options and decide later in the summer on the meeting location. 3. For the next proposal, we will submit a letter of intent to the NIMSS system to recruit new members to the project. Next Project Proposal: Nancy Fey-Yensan The time allocated for small group meetings and the business meeting on Tuesday morning was used instead to begin the planning process for the next funding cycle: Oct. 1, 2009 to Sept. 30, 2014. The first question discussed was whether to continue our focus on aging. The project group decided that older adults will continue to be our target audience based on identified needs. It was suggested that in addition to older adults we add a comparison group such as middle-aged caretakers. A discussion of issues and focus areas based on and expanding the past accomplishments of this regional project ensued. The project members discussed strategies to recruit new members as well as research strategies. Based on the discussion, three draft objectives for the next proposal were developed: 1. Validate tools developed in the NE 1023 experiments. 2. Establish efficacy of nutrition education interventions to affect dietary intake of plant foods, including whole grains, to improve dietary quality of diverse older adult populations. 3. Measure changes in selected physiological parameters by changing diet quality in older adults. Nancy will summarize the draft objectives and circulate to the group via the NE 1023 listserv. Meeting Wrap-up Nancy thanked our hosts. She summarized the major accomplishments of the meeting and timeline for future activities. The meeting adjourned at 11:30 am.

To be posted (see individual station reports)

To be posted