Bolstering Fish and Dairy Consumption in the Granite State

UNH research studies tailored nutritional education that also benefits regional food industries

The federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a lifeline to more than 70,000 Granite Staters—about 5.1 percent of the population—enabling access to nutrition education, fresh food and, ultimately, improved health and well-being for some of the state’s most vulnerable communities. Despite these benefits, many eligible individuals do not participate—a vexing issue for organizations implementing the program and its overall public health effectiveness. Part of the challenge, identified by New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station (NHAES) scientist Sherman Bigornia, is the need for community educators and program administrators to tailor their efforts in ways that align with the values and needs of specific communities, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Bigornia’s research is investigating what that tailoring may entail.

“My first project with the NH Agricultural Station provided evidence that the current SNAP-Ed curriculum used by UNH Cooperative Extension may not be effective at improving dietary quality and chronic disease risk among Bhutanese refugee adults – a specific Granite State population,” said Bigornia, an assistant professor in the agriculture, nutrition, and food systems department at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. The SNAP-Ed curriculum, though translated to Nepali, was not otherwise tailored to the Bhutanese refugee community.

“We learned that participants in our study were meeting recommendations for vegetables, added sugars, and saturated fat, but not for whole grains and fruits,” he added. In additional analyses, Bigornia and his colleagues found that those who reported more fruit and whole grain consumption had better inflammatory and lipid profiles, respectively.

“To me, this suggests that cultural tailoring may improve the impact of SNAP-Ed on the health of Bhutanese refugee adults by emphasizing fruits and the balance of whole and refined grain consumption, while paying less attention to dietary recommendations that they are already meeting,” Bigornia said.

The broader implication of the research was that tailored nutritional plans considerate of peoples’ experiences and histories may help reduce the prevalence of chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, he added.

Bigornia’s current NHAES research, conducted in collaboration with other Station scientists and outreach support from UNH Cooperative Extension state specialists, focuses on understanding what changes are needed to help promote the greater consumption of both seafood and dairy among New Hampshire adults. By identifying some of the barriers that Granite Staters have to accessing local seafood and dairy products, this work could achieve the dual benefit of reducing the risk of age- and lifestyle-related health conditions for those New Hampshire residents that increase their seafood and dairy intakes, and increasing demand for local products from the state’s commercial dairy and seafood sectors, which provide an estimated $140 million and $90 million, respectively, in annual economic output.

Bigornia is also leading a related research project through the New Hampshire Sea Grant, which focuses on developing a culturally tailored online nutrition education program to increase fish consumption among low-income Latino adults in the Granite State—a program based on the evidence of the potential health benefits, particularly for brain health, of consuming fish. Previous work by Bigornia and his colleagues has shown that Latino adults who reported consuming more omega-3 fatty acids—nutrients that have high concentrations in fish—tended to have better cognitive functioning and lower depressive symptoms over time.

“This research is still in the early stages however, it will ultimately inform the tailoring of dietary and health messaging targeting greater seafood and dairy consumption among Granite Staters,” said Bigornia.

Why Consuming Seafood Is Good for SNAP-Ed…and for Business

While much of SNAP-Ed programming concentrates on fruit and vegetable consumption, evidence suggests that fish consumption is associated with lower risk of dementia and depression, according to Bigornia, adding that both conditions are disproportionately experienced by Latino adults in the U.S. Furthermore, national data indicates that Latino adults consume less than half the recommended 8-ounce-per-week serving of fish recommended by the American Heart Association.

“So, supporting fish consumption in particular among Granite Staters—especially those from Latin American countries—may improve overall health outcomes,” he added. “Moreover, the New England region has experienced the slowest growth in seafood sales between 2016 and 2021, at 26 percent, whereas the national average was 41 percent for the same period.”

In New Hampshire, there are several factors contributing to the slow growth of seafood sales, with one of the biggest components being the high price of seafood that makes these foods inaccessible to individuals within lower income brackets, explained Gabriela Bradt, an associate state specialist with UNH Extension and NH Sea Grant.

Another component is that American consumers are notoriously picky seafood eaters, often limiting themselves to five species, Bradt added. In 2021, the top five consumed fish species in the U.S. were shrimp, salmon, canned tuna, tilapia (freshwater) and Alaskan pollock. Lobster—a New England staple and the largest fishery in Maine and New Hampshire—doesn’t even make the top ten species consumed by Americans. The research led by Bigornia could lead to not only more effective ways to educate New Hampshire’s SNAP recipients to consume seafood products that benefit their health and well-being, but to also empower those same consumers to seek seafood that is locally sourced from New Hampshire and New England producers—rather than only the top five species—thus growing the state’s and region’s seafood industries.

“Ultimately, this research will provide key insight to harvesters, producers and consumers about the importance of not only eating seafood, but also for providing a greater variety of species—and at different price points—to New Hampshire and New England consumers,” said Bradt, who will help distribute the findings of this research once complete.

Funding:

Bigornia’s work is supported  by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station through joint funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (under Hatch award number 1020097) and the state of New Hampshire, and by a grant from the New Hampshire Sea Grant. You can learn more Bigornia’s research on his lab website.

Founded in 1887, the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture is UNH’s first research center and an elemental component of New Hampshire’s land-grant university heritage and mission. We steward federal and state funding, including support from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, to provide unbiased and objective research concerning diverse aspects of sustainable agriculture and foods, aquaculture, forest management, and related wildlife, natural resources, and rural community topics. We maintain the Woodman and Kingman agronomy and horticultural research farms, the Macfarlane Research Greenhouses, the Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center, and the Organic Dairy Research Farm. Additional properties also provide forage, forests, and woodlands in direct support to research, teaching, and outreach.