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Expanded Food & Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP)

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) provides a series of eight practical, hands-on, multilingual nutrition lessons from the Eating Smart•Being Active Curriculum for limited-income parents of young children.

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Our Mission

To assist low-income youth and families with young children to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes, and changed behavior necessary to choose nutritionally sound diets and to contribute to their personal development and the improvement of total family diet and nutritional welfare. 

EFNEP Celebrates 50 Years

For 50 years, UC Cooperative Extension EFNEP educators have taught Californians in their communities, at their community centers, schools, Head Start preschools, churches, and sometimes, in their own homes, how to lead a healthy life.

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is an essential resource in the fight against poverty, malnutrition and obesity. It was implemented to teach healthy eating habits to the most vulnerable in the country: children, and their adult caregivers, such as single mothers and fathers, immigrants, unemployed, and elderly grandparents. EFNEP helps people who, in the ups and downs of life, face a time without enough money for food.

EFNEP has many success stories to tell. Read more...

Contact Us

Phone (650) 276-7429
Email cesanmateo@ucanr.edu

What Does EFNEP Do?

In California, EFNEP has been administered by the University of California Cooperative Extension for fifty years, using a holistic nutrition educational approach. As a result of participating in EFNEP, individuals and families experience improvements in four core areas:

  • Diet Quality and Physical Activity—Improved diets and nutritional and physical well-being through the adoption of federal food and physical activity recommendations

  • Food Resource Management—Increased ability to buy, grow, or otherwise appropriately obtain, prepare, and store food that meets nutritional needs

  • Food Safety—Improved household food safety and sanitation practices

  • Food Security—Increased ability to get food directly—and from food assistance programs where necessary—to ensure having enough healthy food to eat