Recommendations
There are many keynotes and strategies we took from this cooking course that we then took as inspiration to help develop and shape the cooking curriculum specific to food insecure children in Newark, Ohio.
Class Size
We found the most effective class size to be less than 20 participants in total including both children, parents, and siblings. We found this to be most effective because we were able to maximize the experience for our participants and give each participant the individual attention they need while allowing the group to learn from each others' contributions and questions. Exceeding this number of participants reduces the efficacy of the material, because it limits individual participation of the course, and accountability for participation and makes the course less intimate.
Parental Participation
Including parents in at least part of the cooking class is extremely important for enacting change in the food habits of the children. Including parents in the class allows for a better chance of the material being implemented in the home as we found the parents to be the biggest influences over what food comes into the home and is provided to their children. In addition, parents are the best audience for more complex resources such as representatives of SNAP/WIC, dietitians, and representatives of local farmers markets, and they allow us to send more food home with the children as they can help carry heavier frozen casserole dishes instead of being limited to light, processed food.
Hands-On Learning
In both our research and our experience with our cooking classes, we found including hands on activities such as cooking a meal together to be more engaging and fun for children and their family members to participate in. Our intended purpose was to educate and address food insecurity with dignity, care and fun, a hands on experience was extremely important to fulfilling this. Showing participants how to make a meal, shows them that food is something that they can do for themselves. Food is more than a box you pull out of the freezer or a meal your order at a window but a fun activity. In addition, it allows us to show the participants how to cook local/seasonal produce they may not otherwise know how to prepare, cook and eat.
Another aspect of hands on learning that we were not able to incorporate in our first classes but intend to include in the future is showing students were food comes from. We intend to accomplish this through utilizing the numerous school and community gardens started by Together We Grow, and taking the students on trips to local organic farms, and making food with the food that we grow or pick. Exposing children to growing food has been proven to increase their willingness to try new foods, and increases their willingness to make healthful food choices (Ruth, Ranjit, Ruthledge, 2012).
Mitigate Greatest Barriers Where Possible
Perhaps one of the most important aspects to mitigating food insecurity is determining the greatest barriers to food insecurity in the community and catering the resources made available to address them. Based on our research, we learned three of the most common barriers to food security. From this we found that the greatest barriers were as follows:
Can’t afford healthful food- Connecting participants with SNAP/WIC to get benefits to supplement their food budget. Teaching participants how to shop healthfully while maximizing their food budget, ie what areas of the grocery store has the least expensive food with the most nutritional value that can feed the most people. While we were not able to conduct our own grocery store tours, we observed those done by Local Matters and we intend to include in our future curriculum as we continue to develop the class.
Non functional kitchen- In some cases, participants did not have a functional kitchen either because their appliances did not work or did not have any, or they did not have cooking utensils like knives, cutting board, bowls, etc. We tried to identify these cases as best we could through surveying/interviews, but we also think making these items available in as a “take what you need” resource available to be taken home after class could be helpful to those that are uncomfortable asking for help/sharing their barriers to food insecurity. Thus, we provided hotplates, and other cooking utensils for those that needed it at the end of class.
Don’t know what is healthy- Incorporating nutritional programming specifically tailored to the learning level and low-incomes of participating family members increases the knowledge of what their families need to eat to be healthy. Nutritional programming also needs to incorporate how food can be afforded whether through food pantries, farmers markets, and/or utilization of SNAP/WIC benefits for those that are eligible.
We also suggest pre and post surveying participants in the class asking them what their greatest barriers are. Each community is different and faces unique challenges. We developed three surveys to be administered before, during and after the class to help identify people's barriers to food security, see appendix. Where possible, connect people to resources to help eliminate their barriers. For example, if someone reports not having a functioning stove, help them get connected with a hot plate.