Author: Deborah Shepherd
Major Program: Food Preparation and Preservation
Fourteen students participated in Food Preservation Workshops. Pressure Canning and Water Bath Canning were the main focus. Kitchen safety, food safety, food storage, knife safety, budgeting, food and nutrition were also topics covered. Participants engaged in a hands-on learning environment. Ten of the participants had never canned before. All the participants reported strong fears of using a pressure canner. All the participants reported replacing feelings of fear
Author: Dayna Fentress
When the pandemic hit, all programs stopped for a short time. Within just a few months though, the Hardin County FCS Program and Hardin County Public Library decided to take their former monthly nutrition programs to a virtual platform. With more interest in local foods, preparing meals at home, and the need to learn new ways to prepare what's in your pantry for cheaper, a nutrition and appliance series began. Topics ranged from air fryers to electric pressure cookers, canning, dehydrat
Author: Nellie Buchanan
Morgan County is a county where nearly all geographic areas experience food deserts. FCS agent and Wolfe County SNAP assistant worked collaboratively with Family Resource and Youth Resource Center coordinators, along with school personnel to plan and establish programming for youth to teach quick and easy snack ideas, promote KY Proud products, food safety, etiquette and life skills have in their development as responsible/self-sufficient individuals. &nbs
Author: Tracy Cowles
Due to the pandemic, traditional programming had to take a back seat and new programming ideas had to be developed. One technique that the Butler County Extension Agent for Family & Consumer Sciences used was social media. Since, families were not gathering during the holidays to celebrate as they did in the past, some were now going to be preparing those holiday meals for the first time. To help with this, Talking Turkey, a video series, was developed to show the process of purchasing
Programming in a year of a pandemic, required resourceful methods to reach families with research based USDA recommended practices for preserving food safely. 2020 was a unique year, home gardening grew by leaps and bounds as did the request for canner testing, food preservation materials and even denouncing many "inaccurate" Face book posts that people shared as "safe". Intervention with a local food group on Facebook led many to observe, request and practice saf
Author: Rita Stewart
Because of in-person meeting restrictions, the Lincoln County Extension Office has moved to incorporate virtual options and independent study pick-up kits. This has allowed clients to stay engaged and provided new opportunities for Extension Programs to involve the entire family. All Lincoln County Extension Staff members worked together to plan and implement a week-long Pumpkin Palooza event for the last week of October. Families signed up in advance and received a kit with most of the supplies
Author: Kathy Byrnes
With the spread of COVID 19 in spring and summer of 2020, many more citizens grew home gardens. Information on safe and effective ways to preserve food preservation was needed as much as ever. Traditional in person and hands on classes, however, were out of the question. In addition, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), many cases of foodborne botulism have happened after people ate home-canned, preserved, or fermented foods that were contaminated with toxin. The foods became
Author: Hazel Jackson
During the pandemic, local families had a renewed interest in gardening and food preservation as a means to have food available to the family at all times. During the month of June 2021, the FCS agent collaborated with Kentucky Communities Economic Opportunity Council (KCEOC) child development center and KEHA to offer food preservation workshops. 6 childcare center parents attended and online zoom workshop on Pressure Canning Basics. The one hour workshop covered food saf
Author: Andrea Slone
According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, one in five households in the United States practice home canning. The Center for Disease Control has stated that 30 percent of botulism cases from the past decade was caused by home canning practices. As by popular demand in the county and the Floyd County Extension Council, the Floyd County Family & Consumer Science Agent held multiple food preservation hands-on workshops for the fifth year in a row for 40 individuals. As opp
Author: Julia Wilson
Each year during the gardening season, Edmonson County residents reach out to the Edmonson County Cooperative Extension Service with questions about food preservation. During the 2020 gardening and canning season many families had a renewed interest in home food preservation. Due to COVID restrictions the FCS Agent was not able to accommodate in person food preservation classes in Edmonson County. Due to this the FCS Agent created SOKY Home Food Preservation. A Facebook group moderated by
Author: Shonda Johnston
As the pandemic restrictions began to lift in early 2021, the Clark County FCS Agent and the Clark County ANR agent began to brainstorm programing ideas for our first in-person meetings for the post-pandemic world. There had been a great deal of news coverage of possible food shortages and as a result and a renewed interest in growing your own food to address the possible shortages. To address this new concern, it was decided to host a collaborative gardening series, focusing on growing, process
Author: Lora Howard
Individuals during Covid were looking for nutrition good tasting options for food consumption. Families make choices to improve health and well-being to combat chronic diseases and obesity to improve and make healthy lifestyle changes. The homemaker leaders training Sensational Salads was presented Live via Facebook by the Family and Consumer Science Agent.Topics covered were nutritional value of salad greens, how to select, store and prepare salad, adding color texture to your meal,
A new study by Tufts University researchers found that 50% of full-service restaurant meals and 70% of fast-food meals consumed in the Unites States were found to be of poor nutritional quality. The authors of this study recommended eating at home more often as one of their suggestions for healthier meal options.With these statistics in mind (from this and many other studies), the Kenton County Family and Consumer Sciences Agent developed and implemented a 6-part “One Pan Meals” seri
Author: Alyssa Cox
Wolfe Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent, Alyssa Cox, collaborated with Elliott County Extension, Elliott County High School, and AppHarvest to offer a food preservation workshop during AgTech Camp. A total of 7 high school students participated in the program to learn how to preserve the produce grown in their new AppHarvest Container Farm. During the program, various methods of food preservation were discussed, including boil water canning, pressure canning, dehydrating, and freezing
Author: Sandra Bastin
New Extension Family and Consumer Science Agents, especially those without prior training, are in need of food preservation hands-on training and available related educational materials, equipment and supplies. This basic information in the form of an all-day hands-on workshop includes food safety, canning equipment basics, canning high acid foods, canning low acid foods, freezing and dehydrating. A rudimentary level of knowledge allows agents to have the confidence to train clients in their cou
Forty (40) landscaping professionals attended a zoom conference seminar with the purpose of gaining new nutritious ideas for bagged lunches or making better selections at restaurants nearby. Let's Do Lunch! Eating More Healthfully on the Run incorporated the following components: Nutrition for the Day, Perfect Portions, the Perfect Sandwich, Lunchbox Ideas, Healthy Meal Prep Ideas, Green Containers, Dining Out Healthfully, and Make it Happen! Participants were asked to look at their me
Author: Jamie Dockery
When the pandemic struck, Fayette County Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education assistant Jacqui Denegri and horticulture agent Jamie Dockery had to quickly redesign their summer gardening/cooking series for students with Down Syndrome. They had to take the entire program online. Families picked up garden packets Dockery made for them,that gave them the things they needed to grow tomatoes and peppers in their own yards. During the weekly sessions, he would answer questions they had
Author: Katherine Alexander
Daviess County Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent offered a Basics of Canning workshop to four individuals who have never canned. One-hundred percent of the participants identified research-based methods of home food preservation as a result of the program. Following a pretest and the program, one-hundred percent of the participants could differentiate between high and low acid foods on the post-test. One-hundred percent identified signs of unsealed jars and signs of spoilage in home c
