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The Thomas Collective
Lauren Carasso, lcarasso@thethomascollective.com
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Non-Profit Organizes First-Ever Summit to Develop Consensus
on Healthy Eating 

 
BOSTON, MA — October 7, 2015 – To help Americans bombarded with multiple messages on what constitutes healthy eating, Oldways—the non-profit nutrition organization best known for creating the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid and the Whole Grain Stamp—will organize Finding Common Ground in Boston on November 17 and 18. The two-day summit will ask an international group of top nutrition scients and medical experts to come to a consensus on what Americans should be eating.  
 
With scientific co-chairs Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Dr. David Katz, Founding Director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, the conference will bring together scientific and medical experts on popular diets ranging from Paleo to Vegan, and gluten-free to low-fat, to agree on a common core of nutrition facts. As Harvard’s Nutrition Chair, Dr. Willett emphasizes that the discussion will be grounded in science. “Our job as policy advisors is to carefully evaluate the torrent of new scientific, and sometimes pseudo-scientific, information coming out from all directions.” 
 
The conference’s goal is to make clear recommendations to alleviate the confusion rampant among U.S. consumers. “Basic principles of good eating and nutrition widely shared by many cultures and diets, must be identified through scientific inquiry, and made readily available,” says Sara Baer-Sinnott, President of Oldways. “This ground-breaking summit is a way of determining where we find common ground and then crafting a unified message about eating well.” 
 
Finding Common Ground will also evaluate the role of the media in contributing to Americans’ health and nutritional information and misinformation, with leading journalists in the industry contributing to the discussion on how—and why—nutrition messages get distorted.
 
The conference is the first to work with the media to identify tools by which journalists can educate themselves before disseminating news to the public. “We also want to address ways the media can cover new research going forward, without getting caught up in sensationalism and fads,” says Baer-Sinnott. 
 
Additional participants in the conference will include scientists such as Dr. Dean Ornish of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and prominent media such as Dr. Kathleen Zelman of WebMD, as well as experts from Princeton, Stanford, Cornell, Tufts, Emory, and the Universities of Toronto, Athens, and Navarra. Also presenting will be speakers from Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine.
 
Information about the conference can be found on the Oldways website (www.oldwayspt.org). 
 
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About Oldways
Oldways (www.oldwayspt.org) is a nonprofit food and nutrition education organization, with a mission to inspire healthy eating through cultural food traditions and lifestyles. Simply, Oldways advocates for the healthful pleasures of real food. Oldways’ programs include the Whole Grains Council; Oldways Cheese Coalition; Mediterranean Foods Alliance; African Heritage & Health; Oldways Nutrition Exchange; Oldways Supermarket Dietitian Symposium; and Oldways Culinary Travel. The organization is well-known for creating the Whole Grain Stamp and the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.