In April 2024 the Nutrition Education Program Assistant worked with Denise Boebinger, a local Homemaker, to start a monthly Adult Cooking Club, focused on the Healthy Choices for Every Body curriculum. In addition to these lessons, Denise has an additional lesson, like pasta-making, to highlight some aspect of the recipe in the lesson. Each month as we cooked together and learned more about food safety and healthy eating, we would challenge the attendees to think of additional ways they can work with the ingredients to make it healthier and/or tastier.

Also addressed were dietary restrictions based on allergies or ongoing health issues and how each of them can cook without stress or concern of how the food will impact their health. Some of the attendees acknowledged a dislike of cooking and anxiety over learning and prepping fresh food. Working with each of these attendees to find methods that worked best for them while eating a healthy diet was a big part of class discussion.

The Club has met for three months and each time has been a fun and educational experience for the teachers as much as the students. The May class involved cooking the Garden Sloppy Joes with two teams using slightly different ingredients (e.g., ground turkey vs. ground chicken) and adding their own seasonings and touch on the flavor in the recipe. It was fun to try each one and see what worked better in each.

This will be an ongoing club, however we have currently completed three lessons and will wrap up the Healthy Choices for Every Body curriculum in September 2024.