HEART EXPERTS PROVIDE FACTUAL BEEF INFORMATION AT SCIENCE CONFERENCE

CHICAGO (December 21, 1998) – An exhibit in the popular heart healthy food pavilion at the recent American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions in Dallas raised both the eyebrows and diet awareness of attendees. Apparently, many weren’t expecting to find the beef industry available to discuss the healthful aspects of beef to the more than 42,000 heart authorities at the meeting last month.

But the checkoff-funded exhibit made perfect sense, according to Kay Vandiver, a beef producer from Camden, Mo., and chairman of the beef industry’s Health Professional Influencers Subcommittee. "Our representatives had a chance to demonstrate to exhibit visitors that beef is a healthful part of a balanced diet, and we needed to be there to communicate that message," says Vandiver. "Those in the health care field need the reassurance that beef plays an important and positive role in our diets."

In addition to reprints of professional journal articles and beef checkoff-funded nutrition education materials, the exhibit provided more tangible proof that beef can be both delicious and healthful by offering actual beef products. Samples of Rotiss-A-Roast, a marinated product for retail and restaurant use that was developed with checkoff dollars, were given to visitors, who were also handed information about the good nutritional properties of the product.

Vandiver says the combination of product and factual information made the beef exhibit one of the most popular at the sessions. In fact, available product didn’t last through any day of the one-week-long conference.

"We stopped them with the aroma, interested them with the taste, and convinced them with the information," says Vandiver. "We were surprisingly successful in winning over people who had preconceived negative ideas about the nutritional value of beef."

The exhibit was part of a comprehensive checkoff-funded effort to reach health professionals through the conference. In addition, an abstract of a checkoff-funded research project that demonstrated that beef can be incorporated in a National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Step I diet and reduce cholesterol levels was presented in two poster sessions. The study,

conducted at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Minnesota and the Chicago Center for Clinical Research, will be published in the Archives of Internal Medicine this coming spring. Authors of the research also were interviewed at the conference by health reporters.

-- NCBA --

This and other nutrition education efforts for health influencers are funded by the national beef checkoff, which is administered by the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board. This 111-member board is appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to oversee the collection of the $1-per-head checkoff, certify state beef councils, implement the provisions of the Federal Order establishing the checkoff and evaluate the effectiveness of checkoff programs.

Health influencer and nutrition education programs are coordinated by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a Beef Board contractor. With offices in Denver, Chicago and Washington, D.C., NCBA is a consumer-focused, producer-directed organization representing the largest segment of the nation’s food and fiber industry.