Evaluating Effectiveness of Spices and Herbs to Increase Vegetable Intake Among Military

January 4, 2024 updated by: Jonathan Scott, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

"The goal of this study is to evaluate whether the addition of spices and herbs to the vegetables served to military personnel on a large military base can increase vegetable intake as compared to typical vegetable offerings without spices and herbs.

A two-phase intervention will be conducted on base at Naval Station Activity Bethesda (NSAB) to evaluate whether the addition of spices and herbs to vegetable dishes can increase vegetable intake amongst military service members.

Phase I will involve extensive engagement with key stakeholders involved in current vegetable consumption at NSAB, including military service members, staff dietitians, the health promotion specialist on base, barracks managers, military culinary specialist, unit leaders, morale welfare and recreations/single sailor program leaders, base senior enlisted leaders, and the base commander. Questionnaires will be administered evaluating current barriers to vegetable intake at NSAB, familiarity with and liking of a variety of spices and herbs, and sensory testing of several vegetables with and without spices and herbs. The recipes in the vegetable sensory testing comparisons will be identical other than spices and herbs content.

Phase II will involve will focus upon the direct measurement of vegetable intake (primary outcome) and vegetable linking (secondary outcome) among active-duty service members with spices and herbs and without spices and herbs. The vegetables will be provided as part of an entire meal on a "grab and go" plate. The other foods in the meal (proteins, starches, etc.) accompanying the vegetables will be kept consistently paired to vegetable recipes to minimize confounding. Vegetable intake will be assessed via cell phone pictures and liking will be assessed by a single 5-point Likert scale question."

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

400

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Maryland
      • Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20814
        • Recruiting
        • Naval Support Activity Bethesda
        • Contact:
          • Commanding Officer
          • Phone Number: 301-319-8897

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Junior Service Member (E1-E4 or O1-O3)
  • Read and write English

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Anyone under 18 years of age
  • Anyone not in the U.S. military

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: Vegetables
Vegetables will be provided to volunteers as part of a heat and serve meal kit.
Other: Spiced
Vegetables provided to volunteers will be spiced.
Other: Plain
Vegetables provided to volunteers will be plain.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Vegetable consumption
Time Frame: Volunteers will be provided with a series of heat and serve meal kits over approximately 2 month time period.
Volunteers will provided with a heat and serve meal kit. Using the food photography mobile application (SmartIntake), volunteers will take a single photo of the meal kit after they have consumed a self-determined desired amount of food. The digital photo will be sent to Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC) for analysis via the SmartIntake app. The team at PBRC will download the image and use a validated algorithm to estimate, in cups, the remaining vegetable component from the meal kit.
Volunteers will be provided with a series of heat and serve meal kits over approximately 2 month time period.
Phase I - Primary Outcome: United States Military - Menu Item Survey
Time Frame: Volunteers will be provided with a series of 8 recipes to evaluate over the course of a single taste testing session through study completion, an average of 1 year.
Overall liking of menu item, specific ratings of the appearance, aroma, flavor, texture, and overall appeal of the menu item, and qualitative feedback on general impressions of the menu item
Volunteers will be provided with a series of 8 recipes to evaluate over the course of a single taste testing session through study completion, an average of 1 year.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

Collaborators

University of Maryland, Baltimore
Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine
McCormick Science Institute
Nova Institute for Health

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Chris D'Adamo, PhD, Assistant Professor

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 6, 2022

Primary Completion (Estimated)

July 30, 2024

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 31, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 9, 2022

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 11, 2022

First Posted (Actual)

August 12, 2022

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

January 9, 2024

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 4, 2024

Last Verified

January 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • USUHS- 2022-105

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

No Personal Identifiable Information (PII) will be collected. All results will be deidentified and analyzed in aggregate.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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