Success StoryCooking Program Leads to Youth Eating More Fruits & Veggies



Cooking Program Leads to Youth Eating More Fruits & Veggies

Author: Renata Farmer

Planning Unit: Knox County CES

Major Program: Family and Consumer Sciences 4-H Core Curriculum

Plan of Work: Making & adopting healthly lifestyle choices

Outcome: Intermediate Outcome

With the growing number of families eating on the run instead of cooking at home, many young adults don’t receive needed basic cooking skills. In addition, approximately 4 out of 5 children do not consume the recommended fruits and vegetables each day. In an effort to encourage more youth to get into the kitchen and to improve their diets Knox County 4-H Agent and FCS Agent teamed up to offer a three-day cooking camp. Twenty-three youths participated in this 3-day camp. Youth were taught basic cooking skills such as food and equipment safety, knife safety, safe food handling, proper cutting techniques, reading a recipe, how to measure properly and basic nutrition. In the process, they used basic learning skills such as math, science, and reading. This was a hands-on program that taught youth life-long skills. Participants learned to make a variety of recipes. As a direct result of the program, several parents and participants have reported an increased interest in eating healthy and helping prepare meals at home. Many of the children went home and used their cooking skills and prepared one of the recipes. 100% of participates willingly tried the recipes and 100% of participates said they wanted to eat more fruits and vegetables.






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