Over the past few months, TVHC’s Community Outreach and Advocacy (COA) Department hosted Cooking Matters classes for the Promotoras with the goal of supporting the community with nutritious food and recipes to share.

The Cooking Matters course was presented in collaboration with 18 Reasons, a Bay Area nonprofit increasing food security through nutrition and home-cooking education.

Each class focused on different topics ranging from how to interpret nutrition labels on various grocery items to demonstrations on accessible ways to eat healthy on a budget.

With these classes, “the community is learning how to cook and eat healthy with the resources they receive each week, including cooking tutorials, healthy eating tips and recipes that are healthy alternatives to traditional high calorie dense foods.” says Sandra Rodríguez, Sr. Manager of Community Outreach and Advocacy.

The Promotoras had a lot of positive feedback about the course, including that they now have a better understanding of nutrition labels and how to incorporate affordable, healthy ingredients into their daily cooking.

Given the importance of good nutrition to overall health, this new cooking knowledge will help our Promotoras continue to educate their communities on ways to stay informed about their health and make healthy nutritional decisions.