FEATURED ARTICLEWelcome to the Super(Job)Market: For Some It’s an RD’s DreamEver wish you could moonlight as a dietary fairy godparent, whispering advice in your clients’ ears as they walked the aisles of the grocery store? While the perks of the job may not include a magic wand, for many registered dietitians, advising consumers while they shop for food isn’t just a fairy tale.“It’s on an upswing right now,” explains Linda McDonald, MS, RD, LD, publisher of Supermarket Savvy, a newsletter designed to make healthy grocery shopping easy. “Consumers are showing more of an interest in nutrition education, so supermarket chains have been hiring registered dietitians.” It makes sense, industry observers say, in a time when grocery shopping can mean thinking about trans fat labeling, omega-3-infused foods or the dietary needs of diabetics, for example. “There are trends and issues that lend themselves to having RDs in stores,” says Shari Steinbach, MS, RD, a healthy living advisor for the Meijer store chain in the Midwest. “One is population trends, like aging baby boomers with special diets. Another is spending trends. People aren’t cooking the way they used to; they want to know how to put together meals that are quick, easy and a good value.” Employing RDs isn’t a novel idea. Since at least the early ’80s Current subscribersLogin to download this issue as a PDF |