Kitchen education

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July 30, 2012

Kitchen education

Class focuses on nutrition and food safety

Shannon Miller The Independent The Daily Independent Mon Jul 30, 2012, 12:03 AM EDT

ASHLAND — Basic nutrition and food safety were the focus of the first Nutrition Education and Cooking Class at Ashland Community Kitchen Thursday.

Nine women attended the class with one central goal — to learn healthy eating and cooking habits.

Patricia Hicks, who works at the Family to Family Health Information Center, said she’s taking the course because she’s interested in starting a similar nutrition class at her workplace to help parents learn to prepare healthier meals for their special needs children. Hicks said she also plans to apply what she learns to her own cooking habits to prepare healthier meals for her son.

Lena Reese, education coordinator with the University of Kentucky through the Boyd County Extension Office, who is instructing the class, said those in attendance seemed to respond well to the course material.

“The ladies here today really seemed interested in making some lifestyle changes,” she said.

Reese said she plans to improve her nutrition and eating habits along with her students.

“We’re all in this together,” she said.

Reese explained the My Plate diagram, the United States Department of Agriculture’s new replacement for the food pyramid, is an updated breakdown of what one should eat each day. She gave a general outline of how many daily servings a person should have of each food group and tips on how to measure servings sizes.

“An ounce of meat is about the size of a deck of cards,” she said. “Your length of your thumb is the size of an ounce of cheese or a tablespoon of peanut butter, and the tip of your thumb is the size of a teaspoon of mayonnaise.”

Reese encouraged the class to cut down on junk food consumption, but said eating a little to curb cravings would not be a bad thing.

“Everything is OK in moderation. One of the best tips I ever got was someone told me to put snacks in a clear plastic baggy so you can see how much you’re actually eating,” she said.

The students were asked to do a 24-hour food recall, which meant writing down everything they had eaten in the past 24 hours. The goal, Reese said, is to see about how many calories and how much sodium each student is consuming daily and compare it to what they’re eating at the end of the 6-week course. She hopes the students will have made changes to their diet that will be reflected in the food recall they do toward the end of the course, she said.

Near the end of class time, Reese demonstrated how to prepare Magic Fruit Salad. A copy of the recipe, along with nutrition information, an estimated cost and a bag of ingredients, was given to each participant so they could try the recipe at home.

Reese said the first class session seemed to be a success.

“This is a preliminary to see what works and what needs to be changed, but I feel good about it,” she said.

For more information, call Lena Reese at (606) 739-5184.

SHANNON MILLER can be reached at smiller@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2657.

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