Fresh Focus

Department of Veterans Affairs•www.nutrition.va.gov

Fresh focus is a podcast delivering bites of nutrition information to veterans and their family between visits. Whether you are busy with a family, retired, or more isolated, you can stay connected for you. Dietitians from the Marion VA Health Care System will deliver evidenced based, consistent information to take on today's hot topics while promoting positive health outcomes. The Department of Veterans Affairs does not endorse or officially sanction any entities that may be discussed in this podcast, nor any media, products or services they may provide.

Last refreshed: August 19th, 2025 at 7:40 AM ⓘ

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Episodes

Fresh Focus #8: Infertility Conversations

What happens if you’ve tried and tried and can’t get pregnant? What happens if you’ve done everything “right”, but it’s still not happening? You may be in the 12% of couples who struggle with infertility. Infertility is the failure to achieve pregnancy after 12 months of unprotected sexual intercourse. Infertility can be attributed to the female partner ~30% of the time, the male partner ~30% of the time and both partners ~30% of the time. The other 10% of cases are considered “unknown” or “unex...

Aug 28, 2020•21 min•Season 2Ep. 2

Fresh Focus #7: Pre-Pregnancy Nutrition

In this season of the series we are covering the entire maternal diet…from what to eat when you are thinking of starting a family to feeding your newborn! How exciting to think about becoming a momma! As you are thinking about starting a family and making that decision to try to get pregnant, we want to help you prepare now to allow for a smoother transition to a healthy pregnancy. There is a ton of information out there and trust me, it can be overwhelming and confusing. I want to be the first ...

Aug 28, 2020•21 min•Season 2Ep. 1

#6: Healthy Plate Method – Action Steps

The healthy plate method is not a diet but a strategy to focusing on making healthy choices one meal at a time. This concepts can be modified and tailored to your individual needs and that’s where Dietitians can help. Here are some actions you can take now to put this method into place. 1. Veggies for breakfast Increase your intake of colorful vegetables that are full of vitamins and minerals. The goal is filling ½ your plate of non-starchy vegetables three times a day to be on the right track. ...

Jun 26, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 6

#5: Healthy Plate Method – Breaking Down Protein

Protein is considered the building block of life and is found in every cell of our bodies. It has many important functions and benefits. It helps with muscle tissue repair, growth, and maintenance. Protein also prevents muscle loss. It helps keeps your blood sugar balanced, and protein and amino acids are essential for the formation of hormones, enzymes, neurotransmitters, antibodies, transport proteins, nucleic acids (DNA, RNA), and structural proteins (which are found in hair, nails, connectiv...

Jun 26, 2020•13 min•Season 1Ep. 5

#4: Healthy Plate Method – All About Fats

Fat has had a very strange, political, and controversial history. In order to get down to what’s important, we need to navigate through the confusion. Fat is one of our macronutrients (along with protein and carbohydrates), and it is an essential part of our intake. It has many functions within the body, including organ protection, providing fuel, coating nerve cells, making up organs (our brains are roughly 60% fat), making up cells (lipid bilayer), nutrient & phytochemical absorption, skin...

Jun 26, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 4

#3: Healthy Plate Method – Grains & Starches

Whole grains and starchy vegetables are great sources of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. But what they are best known for is their carbohydrate and fiber. The healthy plate method of meal planning recommends that you limit 1/4 of your plate to grains or starchy vegetables. This is to make sure you leave room for those non-starchy vegetables that should make up half of your plate. Examples of starchy vegetables include potatoes, corn, peas, winter squash, pumpkin, yams and sweet potatoes. Th...

Jun 26, 2020•13 min•Season 1Ep. 3

#2: Healthy Plate Method – Fill your plate with color

So often when we think about eating healthier or getting to a healthier weight or lowering blood sugars so much we hear is “cut back on this” or “eat less of that”. There is a category of foods we all need to focus on eating MORE of! That category of foods is non-starchy vegetables. In the healthy plate planning method we are shooting for filling HALF of your plate with non-starchy vegetables. Non starchy vegetables have much lower carb content than starchy vegetables (think potatoes, corn, bean...

Jun 26, 2020•11 min•Season 1Ep. 2

#1: Healthy Plate Method – Keep it simple

As Dietitians with VA, our job is to help take the mystery out of good nutrition habits. We want to make it as simple as possible for you to make the healthy choices you need to reach your nutrition and lifestyle goals. And it’s with that goal in mind that we are going to be taking a deep dive into a personal meal planning tool called the Healthy Plate . Put very simply, the healthy plate is a visual guide that shows what types of foods, and how much of each type, you should eat at each meal, us...

Jun 26, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 1

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