• About FOODcents
  • Eat Smart
    • Christmas 2012 (new)
    • Understanding Nutrition
    • Food Safety
    • Cook Your Own
    • Making the Most of Fruit & Veg
    • Making the Most of Meat
    • Grow Your Own
    • Avoid Waste
    • Recipes
  • Shop Smart
    • 10-plan
    • Price per kilo
    • Reading Food Labels
    • Explore Your Pantry
• Take on the Takeaway
• Advisors
• FOODcents Training
• Workshops
• Crisis and Emergency Relief
• Contact

About FOODcents

What is FOODcents
History of FOODcents
Ordering Resources
Interested in Learning More?

What is FOODcents?

FOODcents is an education program that helps families to achieve a healthy diet and to save money on their grocery shop. The program is based on a simple concept. To have a healthy diet, people should spend most of their food money on the ‘eat most’ foods and spend least on the ‘eat least’ foods. The ‘eat most’ foods are often the cheapest, so using this spending model means more nutritious foods will be purchased and money will be saved.

History of FOODcents

FOODcents was originally developed by Ruth Foley in Albany, Western Australia, in 1992, as part of a pilot project addressing nutrition issues in low income groups in a regional centre in WA. The pilot project was developed by the Department of Health with support from Healthway and was implemented statewide by the Department of Health in 1995.

The Department of Health continues to support the FOODcents program by funding the Cancer Council WA and Diabetes WA to coordinate the FOODcents program in Western Australia. Additionally, the Department of Health funds Foodbank WA and The Australian Red Cross to deliver the FOODcents program and to train FOODcents Advisors.
FOODcents aims to teach people how to get value for money and achieve a balanced diet.

Ordering FOODcents Resources

If you are in Western Australia and would like to order the FOODcents resources at no cost can do from the Department of Health at www.health.wa.gov.au/ordering. Please note, these are for WA residents only. Click the publication title to download the PDF. Please note these are large files and may take a few minutes to download.
Current publications:

• HP 4797 FOODcents Shop Smart
• HP 4798 FOODcents Eat Smart for four
• HP 4799 FOODcents Eat Smart for two

Queensland
FOODcents advisors in Queensland can order FOODcents publications from the Queensland Health Publications Unit on (07) 3234 1053. These versions may differ from the WA versions. 

• Shop smart
• Eat smart
• Eat smart for kids

Interested in learning more?

The following organisations in Western Australia run community workshops and/or advisor training on nutrition and food budgeting based on the FOODcents principles.

Cancer Council WA conducts community FOODcents education workshops and advisor training. Training is available for all health and community professionals. Community FOODcents workshops are available in some regional areas and cover healthy eating, food budgeting, cooking and a supermarket tour.

Participation is open to all who wish to attend.

Regional workshops can be organised for the following regional centres: Broome, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Midland, Bunbury and Albany.

Contact us if you would like to attend a community workshop or advisor training.

The Australian Red Cross FOODcents Program works with families, adults, young people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and Cultural and Linguistically Diverse communities. This accessible healthy lifestyle program addresses the risk factors related to the prevention of chronic diseases, in order to assist participants to achieve improved health and wellbeing outcomes in Western Australian. The program can be delivered in groups or individually in a participant’s home.

The program has a health eating, healthy weight and physical activity focus, which still enables participants to learn how to make changes to the way they allocate their food budget to achieve a healthy diet/lifestyle, to save money on their food bill and to increase their economic self-reliance.

Enrolment into the program is through referral from a health professional or community agency. Participants can also self-refer. For more information contact Narelle Little on (08) 9225 1984.

The Foodbank WA Food Sensations Program is a practical food budgeting program which has been developed for Foodbank WA’s school and community networks. The program incorporates the WA Department of Health FOODcents nutrition and budgeting program.

The Food Sensations Program aims to improve knowledge and understanding of nutritious foods, and provide the skills to purchase and prepare them. It covers a range of food related topics including:

• basic nutrition principles
• food budgeting
• food preparation and cooking skills
• school and community kitchen gardens

The Food Sensations program offers Educator Training Days and school sessions throughout the year. The Educator Training Days are a 5 hour workshop covering a variety of topics. The training days are available for teachers, education assistants, parents/volunteers, agency representatives and other health professionals, wanting to incorporate FOODcents principles into their programs.

The Food Sensations school sessions run for 90 minutes. The sessions incorporate FOODcents principles into an interactive and fun nutrition workshop. This program is available to schools operating a School Breakfast Program. Parent sessions are also available on request.

For more information on the Food Sensations program please follow the nutrition link at the School Breakfast Program website.

Page last updated Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:05 am