Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) galley staff kicked off the month increasing efforts to provide healthier food choices under the Go for Green® (G4G) program March 1.

The joint-service G4G initiative promotes healthful food and beverage choices in order to optimize the performance, readiness, and health of service members.

Throughout the month, designated as National Nutrition Month, the galley is adding the official G4G menu-code tags to each menu item to identify how healthy each menu choice is, and reinforce the 2016 National Nutrition Month theme to 'Savor the Flavor of Eating Right.'

"The G4G program will help take the guess work out when anyone eating in our facility is looking at their meal options," said Cmdr. Paul Allen, Nutrition Management department head and registered dietician nutritionist.

G4G is a two-part, nutrition-labeling and education program, and it uses a stoplight-color system to easily identify performance-enhancing foods in dining facilities and galleys. The colors are green for eat often, yellow for eat occasionally and red for eat rarely.

"Everyone now will be able to look at the cards and see just how their options rate on the chart," said Allen. "Hopefully, then, the right choice will be an easier decision. The cards will also have a salt shaker displayed to measure the item's sodium content. With about 400 menu items and corresponding tags to create, the goal is to have all galley items tagged by the end of March.

"Our program at NMCP initially started about four years ago with some major shifts in what food we served as main entrees and side dishes, and an even bigger shift of our speed line items," Allen said. "We even made the decision to make the menu items that we continued to make with healthier ingredients, like using whole wheat pasta and brown rice when we could."

G4G labeling is an important, healthy tool to help service members to 'eat well, perform well,' and NMCP galley is leading the charge in providing healthier choices by focusing on more green and yellow options for the service members they serve.

For more news from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, visit www.navy.mil/.