Some of the discussed themes are listed below:

1. Children Feeding
A proper feeding is fundamental to assure the child is going to develop and grow healthly. That’s why Banco de Alimentos provides guidance to parents and tutors regarding their children feeding. We expect them to follow our advices so their children will eat properly and grow normally.

2. Feeding Disturbances
Nervous Anorexia is a disturbance in eating behavior which is characterized by an insane quest for being thin and a great fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even if the individual is clearly underweighted. This type of patient normally adopts improper attitudes to loose weight, such as poor diets, long fasting periods, excessive physical exercises, forced vomiting, non-prescribed drugs and so on. Bulimia is another disturbance related to aversion to the own body and fear of gaining weight. It’s normally a result from some recent feeding trauma, and the patient compulsively eats a large quantity of food is short time periods. To avoid gaining weight after eating, patients frequently force themselves to vomit, use diuretic and laxative drugs, do excessive physical exercises and so on. As this kinds of disturbance are more and more common, ONG Banco de Alimentos has prepared a training program to explain the damages related to these problems.

3. Full Benefit from Oranges
It’s proven that oranges are an excellent source of vitamin C and potassium, which is essential to a good blood formation and to the muscles, besides preventing cancer, heart diseases and cholesterol. Banco de Alimentos has promoted an education program which explained the fruit importance and how it could be fully benefited. It’s possible to use all parts of oranges to avoid food waste, getting tasty and cheap dishes.

4. Freezing Techiniques
This education program was created to teach food freezing techniques so food may be fully benefited and keep all nutritional properties. Frozen fruits and vegetables keep all natural properties. This is vital to the institutions which receive large quantities of food at once and must find a way to preserve them.

5. How to Create a Menu and Replace Food
The institutions are used to serve traditional dishes, using the food always in the same way. So ONG Banco de Alimentos elaborated an education program to teach them to create a balanced and creative menu, besides replacing certain types of food to avoid wasting.

6. Tips to Avoid Wasting
Besides providing food to the registered institutions, Banco de Alimentos is also concerned in assuring the donated food is used in best possible way. That’s why we have created an education program to avoid wasting.

We have taught techniques which allow food to be fully used.

7. Hygiene and Food Manipulation
In order to be considered good, a meal must provide the body all needed nutrients to prevent diseases and develop life. For that, food must be completely clean of any kind of contamination. The food microbiological contamination is only prevented if good products are prepared using the right techniques and respecting all hygiene rules.

The hygiene from food, manipulator and environment is very important to guarantee physical and mental well-being. So Banco de Alimentos has elaborated a guidance hygiene script and has provided it to all registered institutions.

8. Food for Elderly People
The directives to eat healthy are always the same, but every stage of life should receive special attention. That’s why food for elderly people must be defined considering the body and lifestyle changes. Changes in the senses of taste, smell, vision and hearing mat lead to lost of appetite. This changes may also lead elderly people to eat less fruit, vegetables and meat and so they don’t get all the needed fibers, vitamins and minerals. Our ONG has created an education program to stimulate the consumption of this kind of nutrients.

9. Basic Notions on Food and Nutrition
Banco de Alimentos has promoted a lecture with children and teenager parents in a “favela” in São Paulo, in order to provide information about the importance of eating proper foods. We’ve also explained the types of nutrients and their benefits.

10. Children Malnutrition
Malnutrition is a multifactor syndrome caused by several reasons. It’s frequently related to poverty and the subsequent lack of food. It’s commonly related to the lack of proper life conditions. The only way to fight it is considering the family incomes, formal economy, basic education to provide knowledge and information, scholarships, hygiene, proper housing, proper paved streets, proper deject collection, proper drinkable water, proper garbage collecting, and proper health care made by good professionals. Based on this information, Banco de Alimentos has elaborated an education program which aims to offer guidance to prevent this syndrome that causes irreversible damages and the death of million of children.

11. Stock Control
Stock control is a very important concept to manage the stocked food, so it doesn’t expire and consequently it isn’t wasted. ONG Banco de Alimentos has taught the receptor institutions on the best ways to stock food, also considering the products arrival order: the products which have entered first the stock must be used first.

Collective Culinary Lectures

The ONG provides practical lectures to the registered institutions, in order to teach them how to maximize the food usage. When this kind of activity is held, we receive one representative from each institution. They are divided into groups and each groups prepares a different meal. After the meals are ready, the groups discuss the recipes and all representatives taste all meals. This kind of lecture is very efficient to prove that meals prepared with unconventional food parts may be tasty.

1. Homemade Bread Stuffed with Peels, Stems and Leaves
There are so many kinds of bread and cakes that it would be impossible to mention them all. A lot of them are very popular in one region and totally unknown in other, according to the type of available food (ingredients) and consumption habits. That’s why Banco de Alimentos has organized a lecture to promote new ways of producing breads and fully benefit from the donated food.

2. Alternative Brunches
We found out that there was a necessity of better food distribution along the day, so we’ve defined the following meals: breakfast, morning brunch, lunch, afternoon brunch and often supper. The brunch has become a good alternative for us, once it’s a small meal that satisfies our need in the intervals between breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner.

The ideal brunch must provide food which is source of energy, proteins, vitamins and minerals. We must not forget, however, that it should be tasty and visually attractive to who is eating them. That’s why we’ve promoted a lecture to teach recipes that might provide the needed nutrients and be tasty at the same time, besides maximizing the donated food usage.

3. Unconventional Sweets
Unconventional sweets provide a higher quantity of vitamins, minerals and fibers compared to regular sweets, which are often rich in fats and sugars.
We’ve developed a lecture to teach and guide the institutions on how to use unconventional parts from fruits and vegetables, preventing food waste. Leaves, stems and peels are very rich food parts. In order to preserve their nutrients, some cautions must be taken whilst the food is cooked.