SCAN
(The alumni magazine of the College of St. Catherine.)
Fall 2006

Grains of Truth
St. Catherine's professor Julie Miller Jones shares her knowledge of nutrition and whole grains with people here and around the world.

By Meleah Maynard

In June, Julie Miller Jones traveled to Helsinki, Finland to speak at an international conference on the benefits of dietary fiber. The only American speaker at European Union (EU0 platform meeting, Jones shared her vast knowledge of whole grains with the gathering of EU scientists and researchers who, like her, are dedicated to spreading the word about the positive effect whole grains and fiber have on people's health.

A year earlier, Jones, professor of nutrition and food science at the College of St. Catherine, organized an international whole grains summit in Minneapolis, which was attended by more than 400 people from around the world. "That was a great turnout," says Jones, who has taught at St. Catherine's for the past 33 years. "It shows that people are taking the need for whole grains more seriously than they used to."

Jones is right. Though she and others have been extolling the virtues of whole grains for years, public discussion of the need for whole grains in people's diets has only recently made the leap from health food circles to mainstream news. Studies show that eating whole grains helps reduce people's risk of stroke, coronary artery disease, hypertension and certain kinds of cancers, and helps with weight control. Yet there is still a lot of confusion out there about what a whole grain is and where to find foods that contain them, says Jones. And that worries her. While Jones may be an international expert on whole grains and nutrition, it's clear that what really drives her work is not a love of the spotlight but a genuine concern for people's health.

"We know now that nutrition is so important to our health, but many people don't really know what good nutrition is," says Jones, who earned her B.S. at Iowa State University and her Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. "In studies, for example, most people will say they eat a pretty healthy diet. But, in reality, the only vegetable a lot of people eat in a day is the micro-thin piece of lettuce on their fast-food burger with fries. So we delude ourselves when we say our diet is OK. People don't get it."

There's no shortage of places to point fingers when trying to sort out our collective confusion about food, says Jones. Restaurant meals of "ginormous" proportions are considered normal these days. The media is filled with nutrition reports that seem confusing and contradictory. "And nutritionists are constantly telling people to eat one gram of this or two nanograms of that. Who understands what that means?"

That's why Jones makes it her mission to help bust some of the nutrition myths by speaking all over the world to consumers and professionals alike on a wide range of topics, including obesity, women's health, food safety to the benefits of eating whole grain foods. She also writes frequently on nutrition and health. Recently, Jones contributed chapters on the disease risk reduction attributed to fiber and whole grains and on fortification of whole grains with nutrients of concerns, including vitamin D and folic Her columns on nutrition and food safety appear regularly in journals, including Cereal Foods World, Lipid Technology and Food Safety and Security. For fun, she takes time out of her busy schedule to be one of several judges for the annual James Beard awards, which recognize the best chefs, restaurants and cookbooks around the country.

She discovered her love of food and nutrition as a child. Growing up in Waterloo, Iowa, Jones honed her culinary skills by helping her mother, whom she considered a fabulous cook. By the time she was a teenager, Jones was a skilled baker who loved whipping up desserts for her mom's bridge club. She even ran her own little catering business for a short time.

In high school, Jones excelled in science but when she one day announced to a school guidance counselor that she wanted to go into medicine, the woman looked her straight in the eye and replied: "Girls don't do that." And, with that, Jones' unique career path was launched. "Those were the times we lived in then," Jones recalls. "So, instead of becoming a doctor, I decided to combine my fascination with food and nutrition into a science career I would enjoy."

More than 30 years later, Jones is more than a professor and well-traveled expert in her field. In addition to receiving the American Association of Cereal Chemists' highest honor, the William F. Geddes Award, she is an advisor to the International Life Sciences Institute's Carbohydrate Committee and the Food and Drug Administration's Joint Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition. She also is on an industry, government and academic coalition panel aimed at getting Americans to eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

And, satisfyingly enough, back at St. Catherine's Jones is not only teaching young women what they need to know to pursue the science careers of their choice, she is helping groom a new generation of women scientists.

As co-leader of the Center of Excellence for Women, Science and Technology, Jones is involved the College's efforts to engage more young girls in science at an early age (See the article on p. 12 for more information). The Center sponsors programs such as Science Saturday, which offers girls in fourth through eighth grades an opportunity to come to campus for fun, science-related activities, and "50 Careers You've Never Heard Of" to show high school girls and students of color numerous exciting science and technology careers. "It's great to see all the changes that have happened in science since I was a teenager," Jones says. "I look around on Saturdays at how we've got a whole room full of girls who are excited about careers in science and I'm just really glad I get to play a role in that."

Meleah Maynard is a Minneapolis writer.

© Meleah Maynard