Cooperative Extension Nutrition and Food Safety Program

picture of an Extension educator demonstrating the preparation of healthy recipes

Extension educators demonstrate the preparation of healthy recipes.

UD Cooperative Extension provides cutting-edge, research-based food safety and nutrition training to a wide variety of audiences. Food safety information is provided along the continuum from production to consumption. Programs focus on keeping food (and everything around and touching it) clean, keeping food hot, and keeping food cold. Key audiences for food safety programs include foodservice managers and workers, childcare providers, food processing workers, food entrepreneurs, growers, consumers, and youth.

Picture of children participating in a music-based food safety program.

A cooperative extension intern plays a game with day camp students, demonstrating cross contamination of foods

Nutrition programs concentrate on helping individuals to select and prepare a nutritious diet based on the most recent research. Other programs explore the role of diet in development and prevention of various chronic diseases. Specific target audiences include childcare providers and consumers, including low-income families and youth.

In addition to food science and safety programs, Extension offers the Expanded Foods and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) for limited resource families with young children. The program helps these families to improve nutrition practices, manage food dollars, and handle food safely.

Picture of Dining with Diabetes program participants

Dining with Diabetes workshops include diabetes education, cooking demonstrations and tasting of healthy foods

Youth participate in a music-based food safety program “Don’t Bug Me” which shows the importance of hand washing and keeping food out of the “danger zone.” Other hand-on programs for young people include “Boning Up on Health,” emphasizing the importance of preventing osteoporosis while young and the role of dairy products in its prevention, and “Exploring My Pyramid” teaching what foods are needed to go, grow, and glow.

Classes such as “Dining with Diabetes” and “Think Healthy – Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention through Diet” assist families to understand the role food plays in preventing or controlling chronic disease and helps individuals prepare healthy meals for everyone in their family.

For more information, visit:
Cooperative Extension's Nutrition & Food Safety Programs