by Lauren Bell
One of my favorite questions to ask people I meet is “What did you eat in college?”, this is usually followed up by an explanation that I study college food access and have a curious mind.
I tend to get a range of answers, usually along the lines of “I lived on ramen and cereal” or “I barely knew how to cook back then”. Most people offer up a chuckle thinking about how poorly they ate, or how little they even used a kitchen. Most adults’ post-college will chalk that up to the “classic college experience” of ramen, fast food, and other affordable, calorically dense foods. What interests me so much about these responses isn’t just the foods they named, but how these experiences can mold how we step into post-college adulthood habits and lifestyles.
When I started my PhD program at UT in Nutritional Sciences, my main focus was food access and nutrition education. Working with students on campus quickly showed me that access was only part of the equation. These students had a desire to learn not only how to cook, but to engage with their peers.
There was a clear gap in understanding in these young adults, and very few places to fill it.
At the start of my 2nd year, I along with my lab mate, Madilyn Bradley, were awarded the Societal Impact Award from the Moritz Center for Social Impact to tackle this exact issue. The award itself was focused on providing funding to graduate students tackling social issues through the arts. We created “CHEFS: Culinary and Health Education for Fueling Students”, a 5-week culinary “bootcamp” for students experiencing food insecurity. We wanted students to get the chance to have hands-on learning in the kitchen with their peers. CHEFS was meant to be a place for students to learn, to engage, and gain cooking confidence alongside their peers.
Culinary art seemed like the perfect fit to not only provide students with skills they may not learn elsewhere before graduation, but to create environments for them to engage in-person and learn new skills.
After marketing the program for only 1 week, we had over 90 applicants excited and ready to participate! A number that proved the need for a program like CHEFS.
One of the biggest personal successes for me from this program was getting to work one-on-one with students and see how their opinions around food changed over the course of a short period. Students came engaged and excited, and eager to ask questions. It was a delight to see and showed the importance of in-person hands-on learning, and that students want that.
In a world of increased virtual learning, there are some things that still benefit from seeing another person in front of you. Students took pictures with each other, exchanged numbers and Instagram handles, and displayed connectedness with people they had only known for 5 weeks.
They also got to explore new foods and new techniques. Many students had not used knives readily, or tried certain vegetables prior to the class, but they got to do all of this amongst peers. One of my favorite quotes at the end of the program when we were making kale salads were “I didn’t know Kale could taste this good!”. The excitement from trying new foods and techniques was palpable and showed all of us how peer-to-peer learning could be of huge benefit in student programming.
Though CHEFS was only a 5-week program, I was so grateful to see such a meaningful impact on these students and am so grateful to the Moritz Center staff for believing in us.
Cheers to cooking and community!
