As I sipped my tea and waited for the webinar to start, I wrote down what I knew about the National Agricultural Library. It’s an American thing. It has to do with agriculture. It is also a treasure trove of valuable information.
I had no idea what that meant. The USDA National Agricultural Library is one of five national libraries in the United States. It houses one of the world’s largest collections dedicated to all sciences related to agriculture, forestry, ranching, food quality, and nutrition.
It all started in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the creation of the United States Department of Agriculture. From there, we began collecting everything we learned about food production and nutrition.
As the webinar began, USDA experts walked us through resources, some of which are familiar and others not. What surprised me most was that all of this reliable information was in one place and literally at my fingertips.
To get started, enter nal.usda.gov.[トピック]In the tab,[人間の栄養と食品の安全]Choose. Here you can browse various resources in detail.
For example, let’s take a closer look at vegetarian diets. Or find the latest guidance on nutrition for your specific health condition, such as how to eat if you develop diabetes during pregnancy. Or how to deal with eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.
Maybe you just want to know what nutrients are in the avocado you just ate. USDA’s Food Data Central is a great place to start. Provides nutritional information for 440,000 food items. Or perhaps you want a list of foods that are high in a particular nutrient, such as fiber. You can do that too.
The same site also provides access to Nutrition.gov, which provides easy-to-understand nutrition advice based on solid research. For example, there’s a video on how to tell the difference between nutrition facts and fiction.
Need more scientific or technical information? Research results from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (usda.ars.gov) can also be found on this site. What does this agency do? Finding solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day, from field to fork.
Need more specific information? We’ve included several tools to help you find what you need. It’s like having a trusted librarian right next to you.
The National Agricultural Library also offers a collection of materials related to the history of agriculture in our country. There is historical data on how dietary guidance has evolved over the years. and documented accounts of how farmers fed our country during the world wars.
Indeed, there are many voices competing for our attention in the field of nutrition. We recommend that these trusted resources are based on the latest scientific evidence to date. And yes, I learned that it will be updated as new facts come to light.
Barbara Quinn-Intermill is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. She is the author of Quinn-Essential Nutrition (Westbow Press, 2015).Please send an email to her at [email protected].
