Last night ended the first 4-week “Healthy Eating and Meal Planning” class and it was a grand success! The lesson focused on meal planning strategies and the meal was pizza – always a favorite dish to make. For our first class we served 5 families from the community surrounding Floyd Light Middle School. Throughout the past four weeks I spoke with different families to glean their thoughts on the class as a whole.  Some people really enjoyed the critical food literacy and others (especially younger participants) loved cooking dinner. Aside from my own goals I set for the class, there were a number of unexpected results.

For example, some families loved having the opportunity to cook a meal with other members of their family. Though I’ll never know for sure, I do think many of the families (especially those with children) will make the effort to cook and eat more together during the week. In some cases, the brief encounters with various vegetables has led some people to want more veggies in their diet! Most of the families eat a fair share of meat during the week, and it looks like more vegetarian meals will come out of this class. Again, an unforeseen change in people’s dieting habits.

One of the comments made to me each week that really started to inspire me was that families wanted to be in the class. On any given night of the week there are television shows, activities, movies and hanging out desires to be met. And yet, every Monday night the families returned to the class with excitement and an eagerness to learn. The opportunity to provide a space for enrichment is highly rewarding. I suppose this is the feeling teachers have when students show up after school.

With the ending of this first session, I am invigorated for more classes. Tomorrow I’ll begin a class at Fir Ridge High School and I know other opportunities await the arrival of this extra-special cooking class! Yes, I am proud of myself. Though I won’t let this get to my head too much. There’s plenty to learn and be humble about in this effort to engage the local food movement.

Related posts:

1. A Successful Cooking Class
2. The Food Curriculum Project (part VI) “Lesson Plan 4″
3. Critical Food Literacy and a Sustainable Food Movement
4. The Kale Vacuum
5. The Food Curriculum Project (part I)

Tags: cooking, education, food literacy