Cooking Matters.....Making Healthy Meals on a Budget
This fall the Beacon Place MOMS are participating in a 5 week Cooking Matters course learning how to make healthy meals on a budget.
As part of the No Kid Hungry campaign to end childhood hunger in America, Share Our Strength's Cooking Matters course teaches participants to shop smarter, use nutrition information to make healthier choices and cook delicious, affordable meals. At Beacon Place, the course is being led by Lilah Handler, Manager - Healthy Lifestyles Initiative, at Everthrive Illinois - the local organization that is spearheading
Cooking Matters courses in our area.
The focus of the course is to teach healthy cooking methods as well as to teach the participants how to "shop smarter, read nutrition labels to make healthier
choices, and cook delicious, affordable meals." Additionally, each participant receives the ingredients to take home in order to recreate the recipe for their families.
As a part of the program,
the MOMS toured Lewis Fresh Market where they practiced reading
the
nutritional information provided on labels and were then challenged to
purchase ingredients to make a healthy meal that included 3 out of 5 food groups.
Lewis Fresh Market is a generous partner to Beacon Place.
The women in the MOMS group also recognize healthy lifestyles go beyond the food they prepare for their families, it also includes exercise. So, to track their progress overall, the women worked with representatives from Rosalind Franklin University to identify their own baseline physical assessments before the class began. Equipped with donated pedometers, the women are now keeping track of their daily distance walked. They are working to increase their distance each day and will assess their baseline indicators at the end of the 5 weeks to determine the overall impact to their health from the improved nutrition and increased exercise.
Way to go ladies!! These women are setting positive examples for their families and their community! They motivate all of us to get moving!
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