The Center for Health Promotion and Wellness is empowering Kennesaw State students with the ability to cook for themselves and eat healthier.
Over the course of this semester, the Center for Health Promotion and Wellness hosted nine cooking demonstrations for students. Each demonstration focused on a different recipe, all of which are easy to make and affordable on a college budget.
Thursday’s cooking demo was titled “Comfort Food Reimagined.” Ten students, all with different majors, learned how to make ground turkey noodle soup and pesto grilled cheese.
“Even though they’re called cooking demos, it’s not students coming in and watching somebody cook,” said Bethany Wheeler, a campus dietitian and the demo’s instructor. “They actually get to do it themselves.”
“The goal is that, if they do it here, that will increase their self-confidence, and they’ll be able to replicate it when they go back home,” Wheeler said.
Students were actively involved in every step of the process. As students chopped herbs, browned meat and sautéed vegetables, Wheeler observed and only gave advice occasionally.
In addition to teaching the current recipe, Wheeler also gave generic tips for the kitchen, like how to cook items in the recipe a different way or what type of cooking oils to use in different situations.
The students’ levels of experience varied, with some obviously comfortable in the kitchen and others unsure of how to work a stove. Wheeler paid equal attention to all and gave valuable advice to newcomers and veterans alike.
In the soup, students were able to use fresh herbs via the Social Culinary Society, an on-campus student organization. The society has a garden between the math and science buildings on the Kennesaw campus and have provided the Health Promotion and Wellness staff with fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables for several demos.
In one three-hour long demo earlier in the semester, students were given the opportunity to go to the garden, pick out their own produce and return to the kitchen to cook whatever they wanted.
“I think we ended up with, like, 20 different recipes,” Wheeler said. “That’s probably the favorite [demo] that we did, but it was a lot of time and a lot of effort. But it was totally worth it, and students really got a lot out of it.”
Recipes taught in the demos are often vegetarian or include a vegetarian option. This is partially because those options are typically healthier, but they are cheaper as well. The Center for Health and Wellness, along with Wheeler, want to show students the importance of eating healthy and how easy that can be for a small price.
“Comfort Food Reimagined” was one of the first demos to have no returning participants, and Wheeler expressed her excitement that new students are showing an interest. She hopes that several will come back in the future.
While this was the last demo offered for the fall semester, several demos are already being planned for the spring. Some possible demos include recipes for sushi, a cauliflower taco, “breakfast on the go” and baked chicken wings.
To find out about future demos, check your student email or visit the center’s page on Owl Life.
