Situation: Eating more fruits and vegetables is a critical behavior for health promotion and disease prevention. Despite the importance of eating more produce, it is also one of the most difficult eating behaviors to change. It has been reported that cooking more meals at home is related to increased fruit and vegetable consumption.

Educational Response: A social marketing program to promote healthy, home-cooked family meals, Cook Together, Eat Together, was offered virtually by the Crittenden County Cooperative Extension Service. This program was adapted by the Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Agent from its intended in-person format to a virtual format to provide critical information during COVID-19 and in response to community members expressing interest in preparing meals at home.  One of the FCS agent’s goal was to demonstrate how to involve youth in the meal preparation, so it was “truly” cook together, eat together.

Participants: Participants were invited to join a closed Facebook group through the Crittenden County Cooperative Extension Facebook page. It was also promoted in the FCS and KEHA monthly newsletters. Community-wide networking was also successful in recruiting participants. Nine families were recruited to participate in the program with youth ranging in age from 5-15 years of age.  All of these families had not participated in programming with the FCS agent prior to this class.

Outcomes: For six weeks, participants were directly engaged with the content. The recipes and supply list were shared the week prior to the scheduled class time so the families could cook along during class time.  The Facebook live videos demonstrated recipe preparation by the FCS agent and youth from 2 of the recruited families. During the 6 week sessions, 8 recipes were prepared from the breakfast, salads, vegetables, slow cooker, snacks and one pot meals sections of the curriculum. During the food demonstrations, food safety, nutrition and cooking tips were shared.  The recipes chosen were easy and kid friendly. On average, over half of the group members were engaged with each of the weekly classes.  At the end of each session, my plate was covered and we would discussed what food groups were prepared and how we could add to include everything on my plate.  Following the six weeks of classes, videos were edited and posted to the Crittenden County Facebook page each week for the general public. Over 5900 individuals were reached through these post.  

Pre and post-test provided through cook together eat together curriculum showed no changes in eating habits.  However, the families indicated they cooked dinner at home almost 5 days a week and they were averaging 4 cups of fruits/veggies a day before the program began.   The agent posted a qualtrics survey for the families and 100% of respondents indicated:  they are practicing new, healthy fun recipes they learned through the class at home; gained a new cooking technique, skill or tip; have a better understanding of my plate & nutrition requirements and feel their family benefited from the program.