Under COOKstruction Program
The primary goal of Under COOKstruction is to empower young people to increase food security through improved food preparation skills. A secondary goal is to assist young people in building their self- confidence in their own food skills.
Under COOKstruction is a four-week hands-on program designed to improve youth participants' confidence and ability to nourish themselves by addressing food access and preparation challenges. Each secondary school selects eight student participants. These participants are youth with limited food access and food preparation skills. Ideally, these participants are partially or completely responsible for preparing food for themselves or their families, and they have an interest in learning to prepare healthy low-cost food. The participants must be able to use basic kitchen utensils and equipment in a safe manner.
Participants meet once a week to discuss food-related issues and to plan and prepare meals from the Under COOKstruction Everyday Cookbook.5 The sessions are during school time and therefore last approximately 75 minutes. At each session participants learn to follow basic functional kitchen and food safety rules, participate in hands-on small group food preparation activities using the Under COOKstruction Everyday Cookbook, dine together in a positive atmosphere while enjoying participant- made food, and engage in a peer-to-peer food access discussion.
The Under COOKstruction Everyday Cookbook features flavourful, ethnically diverse, easy-to-prepare, low-cost recipes that require very little food preparation equipment. The recipes are economical, featuring typical food bank and Good Food Box staples, without sacrificing nutrition or taste. The sessions are facilitated by two Community Food Advisors (CFAs) and a Public Health Nurse (PHN). The facilitators are trained to be sensitive to participant needs and limitations. They establish a learning environment that allows participants to feel comfortable, engaged, and able to meet program goals
Program Objectives
Participants come to the program with varying amounts of food preparation skill and knowledge of food and kitchen safety. The program objectives are written to allow each participant to make their own progress without comparison to other participants.
By the end of the program:
- All participants will increase their knowledge of food and kitchen safety.
- All participants will increase their knowledge of food access opportunities in their community.
- All participants will increase their food preparation skills.
- By the end of the program, 90% of participants will report the intention to make one or more of the Under COOKstruction recipes at home.