A recently developed program through WVU Medicine Medical Weight Management is encouraging patients to add more vegetables to their diet while demonstrating simple recipes using healthy ingredients.
For four weeks, approximately 20 patients of the weight management clinic met with staff and doctors at Ridgeway Farms in Cheat Lake for a unique cooking class taught by the docs themselves.
“Often, we hear people don’t know how to cook or people say, ‘Oh, I’ve never cooked this vegetable,’” said registered dietitian Judith Siebart. “So, we want to up-sell vegetables and we want to make them taste good and that’s kind of the driver for it — and it’s working.”
Siebart, along with Dr. Rachel Wattick and registered dietitian Cathy Shaw, developed the program.
The classes have a different theme each week. The theme for a class held July 11 was “Gadgets and Gizmos,” which explored cooking with various small appliances and tools like air fryers, pressure cookers and blenders.
Thursday’s class featured three recipes and cooking demonstrations.
Dr. Isabella Negrin walked the group through making buddha bowls with crispy pressed tofu, made using a tofu press and air fryer; and quinoa, which is high in fiber and protein.
Next it was on to the pressure cooker with Dr. Treah Haggerty demonstrating a simple recipe for the Indian dish red lentil dahl.
Finishing up at the blender, Siebart demonstrated mango lassies with mangoes, yogurt and cardamom blended into a shake.
Throughout the demonstrations, the doctors and staff talked about the benefits of the ingredients they were using and pointed out various things that could easily be substituted in each dish.
For example, Siebart said people typically have a strong opinion about tofu, so in the buddha bowl, the tofu could be subbed for a different protein option such as shrimp, chicken, steak, or chickpeas.
Once all the cooking was done, everyone sits down to enjoy a family meal together.
As an extra incentive, attendees leave each class with a goody bag containing all the vegetables used in the demonstration and a small gift — one of Thursday’s gifts was a set of measuring cups.
The cooking program was made possible by a grant the WVU Farm to You program received from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which also helped launch the clinic’s prescription produce program, added additional clinics and an investment to local farms.
Originally, the program was going to invest in a mobile food truck with a teaching kitchen, Siebart said, but that would require a lot of extra effort and clean-up.
When the opportunity came to hold the classes at Ridgeway Farms, owned by the non-profit group Human-Animal Bond, it just made sense since there was already a full kitchen available.
“To have a spot that is conveniently located is wonderful,” Siebart said.
Margaret Kitt, executive director of Human-Animal Bond, said they were happy to host the group and added the farm is usually willing to host various classes and groups who are looking for a venue.
According to Siebart, they will run two separate series of four-week classes with the July 11 class being the third in the first series. The second series will start a new group of patients.
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