COVID-19 and Food

Please see our new signposting page for more information about healthy eating and nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Our Nutrition and Dietetic Health Improvement Team works with colleagues and partners from across the voluntary, local authority and NHS sectors and liaise closely with Oral Health and Health Promotion teams. Our work is driven by local and national policy documents. We engage with local communities to empower and support healthier food choices. We use a person centred and asset based approach to improve communities nutrition knowledge and cooking skills and provide access to nutrition resources, food activity grants and accredited training around food and nutrition.

Community Nutrition

New** Six Step Picture Recipe Cards

Looking for inspiration for dinners to cook during lockdown? These cheap and easy recipes use only a few basic ingredients and in six simple, pictorial steps you can create tasty meals in minutes. The first three recipes were developed using only ingredients from the Scottish Government Shielding Box, the other recipes use a few basic ingredients that you may already have in your kitchen cupboards.

Tuna Pasta Ham and Pea Rice Corned Beef Bake Omelette Muffins Paprika Chicken Fish Crumble Carrot and Lentil Stew Mince and Potatoes Flatbreads Vegetable Chilli

Make shopping and cooking easier with this handy Meal Planner and Shopping Lis t

Are you new to cooking? Or looking to develop your skills in the kitchen?

It’s often easier and more straight forward to cook when someone is actually showing you what to do – demonstrating how much of each ingredient should be added and explaining the recipe step by step.
Below are some videos that demonstrate how to and what to cook:-

Food A Fact of Life – Have some great cooking videos illustrating how to get started. Videos about measuring and preparing ingredients including basic knife skills, using kitchen equipment and the cooker and how to make basic sauces.

Food Skills and Cooking Techniques Poster – Download this free Food A Fact of Life poster and display in your kitchen or cooking area – this will help you to prepare, cook and serve a range of dishes.

British Nutrition Foundation – Have some Cook-A-Long Videos – as part of Healthy Eating Week @ Home. From quick and easy pizzas to pea soup with a quick flatbread.

Parent Club – Have a range of Cook-A-Long Videos – that can help you cook quick and easy meals for the family. Why not get your children helping in the kitchen – it’s often much easier following a video instead of a written recipe and you can pause or rewind if you need to.

Other Easy and Quick Family Recipes

Delve deep into the back of your kitchen cupboards and you’ll be surprised you might even be able to create a healthy meal for the family in minutes with what you already have. Here are some great recipes – why not give them a go?

How To… Recipe Sheets – Visit Nutrition Resources and scroll down to How To Recipe sheets.
BBC Food – Store cupboard dinner ideas on a budget.
British Nutrition Foundation – Recipes.
Love Canned Food – Have a great range of recipes to try.
Eat Better Feel Better – This is a brilliant website featured on the ParentClub site. It is packed full of useful information on healthy eating for the family. From quick and easy family recipes to handy meal planners and also Cook A Long videos to help you get started in the kitchen.
Let’s Get Cooking at Home – Hundreds of inspiring recipes – Meatless Meals, Fakeaways, One Pot Wonders, Recipes for Curry Lovers and much more….
Change4Life – Recipes – Looking for easy, quick meal ideas, get inspired on the Change4Life website or download the Meal Mixer App to help plan your meals. Please note that some services on this website are restricted to people living in England and Wales, as this is a Public Health England Campaign / Website.

Food and Growing Projects Grant Scheme

Our Nutrition and Dietetic Health Improvement Team are pleased to offer our Food & Growing Projects Grant scheme. The grants are available to apply for ranging from £50 for short term pieces of work, up to £400 for larger projects.
These grants aim to support the development of local food & growing activities and initiatives across Forth Valley. Ongoing support will be offered by our team of Community Food Development Workers. The applications are assessed on an on-going basis with guideline closing dates as follows:

Closing Dates: 15^th May; 15^th Sept; 15^th Dec and 15^th Feb 2020/21.

New Online Food Safety Modules

If you are from a community group that is offering food deliveries or an emergency COVID-19 group set up to deliver shopping and medicine to those self isolating, shielding or the more vulnerable members of your community – these food safety modules may be useful to train staff and volunteers around the key food safety, personal and hand hygiene messages. The modules have quizzes attached so once individuals have worked their way through them, they can test their learning with a multiple choice quiz. There are also downloadable posters and resources that can be printed off and displayed in kitchen, packing or entrance areas to remind staff, volunteers and visitors of the importance of hand hygiene, social (physical) distancing and storing and cooking foods at the correct temperatures.

Food Safety Modules

Posters

Handwashing Poster – Food Standards Agency
5 key’s to Food Safety – World Health Organization
Important cooking and food storage temperatures
Food Storage
Social Distancing – 2 metre Poster

Quizzes – Question and Answer Sheets

Test your knowledge with these quizzes – they are best used in conjunction with the training modules above.

Allergen Quiz – Questions
Allergen Quiz – Answers

Cleaning Quiz – Questions
Cleaning Quiz – Answers

Cooking Temperatures Quiz – Questions
Cooking Temperatures Quiz – Answers

COVID-19 Quiz – Questions
COVID-19 Quiz – Answers

Cross Contamination Quiz – Questions
Cross Contamination Quiz – Answers

Food Hygiene and Cooking Quiz – Questions
Food Hygiene and Cooking Quiz – Answers

Hand Hygiene Quiz – Questions
Hand Hygiene Quiz – Answers

Further Online Food Related Training

If you are looking for further online food related courses and training visit:-

REHIS – The Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland – Qualifications for Communities – REHIS run a range of accredited food hygiene and food and health training courses, some of which are available online.
Food Standards Agency – Online Food Safety Training – Free online training courses for businesses including allergen training and food labelling courses.

Home Food Fact Checker – Get advice on some common household food safety questions from the Food Standards Agency.

Forth Valley Food Directory

This NHS Forth Valley Food Directory includes a range of food services and we are always adding more categories to the directory. We started with Recovery Cafes and local Breastfeeding Groups and plan to add Community Cafes, Food Banks, Food Larders, Community Gardens etc to this directory. If you feel your organisation could be added into this directory please email: Pamela Murray, for further information.

How to use this online Food Directory Map

Click the small arrow on the top left of the bar below to reveal the categories within the Food Directory.
Then click the box next to the category of interest, a red tick appears and each establishment is pin pointed on the map.
You can click on each pin to find out more eg opening times, full postal address…(Note – some of these groups may not be running at this time due to coronavirus)
If you click ‘All items’ under each category title – a list of establishments from that category appears, you can then click on the one of interest to find out more. A red title banner has a small arrow at the top right – you can click this and it will take to Google Maps where you can insert your current location and get directions straight to the venue.

Choose To Lose – Practitioner Pack!!

Community Dietitians from the NHS Forth Valley Nutrition & Dietetic Weight Management and Health Improvement Team are delighted to announce the launch of the Choose To Lose – Let’s talk about weight – Practitioners Pack.

This pack has been developed to support healthcare professionals to raise the issue of weight in a positive and consistent manner and with consideration to the words they use to encourage and support people to make positive lifestyle changes.

Starting a short conversation of around 2 to 3 minutes about weight can support a person to start thinking about making their own lifestyle changes. Everyone in direct contact with the general public has an opportunity to raise awareness, motivate and signpost people to help them manage and maintain a healthier weight and improve their overall health and wellbeing. It’s useful for practitioners to use the opportunity at follow up appointments to review weight change progress with their patients.

This pack offers suggestions on how to link weight to a person’s existing medical condition – it provides prompts, conversation starters, practical advice and signposts individuals to useful weight management resources and local services.