CHEF program teaches healthy eating – Central Valley Business Journal

August 31, 2016

 

PHOTO COURTESY UNITED WAY OF STANISLAUS COUNTY

MODESTO — Food is something Modesto mom, Luz Jimenez, is passionate about. Feeding her family healthy meals is important to her, but until recently she didn’t know much about it.

Now Jimenez is learning, along with her children, to provide healthier meals thanks to the CHEF program, which was launched last year by United Way of Stanislaus County.

“Now my children are the ones … looking into the (nutrition pyramid),” Jimenez said. “They look into the calories.”

United Way started the CHEF program at Bret Harte Elementary and Caswell Elementary schools in the Modesto area. The goal was to get school-aged children to eat healthier food.

CHEF stands for Cooking Healthy Eating Food. The program provides healthy cooking lessons, nutritional education and bags of fresh food.

Each bag includes 15-18 pounds of food made up of 50-75 percent produce, 25-50 percent shelf-stable food and healthy cooking recipe cards. During the last school year, 108,852 pounds of food was distributed to students and their families.

Jimenez’s children, ages 8 and 9, attended the CHEF program last year as part of Bret Harte’s after-school program. They received the food bags, and on select Saturdays, Jimenez attended the parent cooking class.

During the class a representative taught adults how to make a nutritious, budget-friendly meal using the items inside the grocery bag, and children participated in a nutrition lesson.

“I would go straight home, and I would do the meal I learned that day and cook it for the family,” Jimenez said.

She added that being supplied with the ingredients made a difference because she didn’t have to stop at the store on her way home. It was convenient.

Jimenez also learned how to make simple swaps in her family recipes to make them healthier.

“Maybe because of our culture, we used a lot of oil,” Jimenez said. Now she uses the same recipes but alters them to reduce oil and add more vegetables.

Steve Hurst, who runs the After School Program for Modesto City Schools, said the partnership with United Way has been positive for both the school and the community.

The CHEF program aligns with one of Modesto City School’s 12 guiding standards — teaching children about a healthy lifestyle. Hurst said it was a perfect fit for their after-school program, and the after-school program provided a good control group for the pilot CHEF program.

Over the course of the school year, the program used 572 volunteer hours, served 287 students and adults at workshops and distributed 6,318 food bags. It was run with the support of Second Harvest Food Bank, Ceres Highs School District and Modesto City Schools.

Hurst said the program addressed the needs of the community in two key ways. First, it brought in food deliveries twice each month.

“It benefitted those families directly,” he explained. “They had access to a good, nutritious meal or items for meals.”

At a school where 98 percent of students qualify for meals in the free and reduced meal program, food insecurity is commonplace.

“For some of the families, it definitely was a needed element,” he said. “There are people out there that need this.”

Secondly, Hurst said students who do not feel food insecurity benefitted by becoming aware of the needs of those around them.

Feedback the program received suggested nearly everything in the bags was used.

The parent and student education element helped many families learn about nutrition and healthy lifestyles for the first time. About 80 percent of incoming students at Bret Harte are learning English as a second language. Sometimes language barriers are the problem, according to Hurst.

Jimenez said the tips and tricks provided in class about buying healthy foods on a budget were especially helpful. She had never thought about buying food in-season as a way to save money. The program also introduced those families to new items such as canned chicken that they probably never thought to use before.

“We want students to become knowledgeable about … what they eat, why they eat it, (and) where it comes from. It supports that aspect,” Hurst said.

About 170 food bags were given out on each distribution day, and 45 parents attended at least one Saturday cooking classes over the course of the year.

Childcare is available during the cooking classes for children ages 2 and older.

Going forward, Hurst is looking forward to seeing the CHEF program expand outside of the schools.

“It’s been a very good partnership,” he said. “I think that the premise of how to we affect the lives in our community to promote better choices in food … it’s moving the right way.”

For the 2016-17 school year Bret Harte Elementary is participating in the CHEF program again in the after-school program. This year, the cooking classes will move to weekdays in an effort to draw more parents.

“To me it was a great experience,” Jimenez said. “Whatever I learned I always tell my mom, tell my sister. I would love for parents to just try going because I feel like there’s a lot of parents that could attend and don’t do it.”

from myhealtyze http://www.myhealtyze.tk/chef-program-teaches-healthy-eating-central-valley-business-journal/