My Community Kitchen Rules
Published in My Sunshine Coast website : 26th of February 2016
Charity & Not For Profit Food & Wine University & TAFE
A Sunshine Coast community nutrition program is providing community housing tenants with an opportunity to cook nutritious meals and learn about healthy eating from two local student dietitians.
Coast2Bay Housing Group, the Sunshine Coast’s largest not-for-profit community housing provider, has partnered with the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) and the Maroochy Neighbourhood Centre to give locals an opportunity to learn healthy ways to cook their favourite foods whilst gaining skills including reading food labels, shopping on a budget and portion sizes to promote good health.
The program is funded by Coast2Bay Housing Group and delivered by two 4th-year Nutrition and Dietetics students from the University of the Sunshine Coast who are on a six-week workplace integrated learning placement. This is the third phase of the project but it is the first time it has been delivered in a commercial kitchen setting, owing to the support of the of Maroochy Neighbourhood Centre, which kindly donated the use of its commercial kitchen.
“The cooking workshops are providing the tenants with cooking skills and nutrition knowledge but there is also an increased sense of community connectedness and capacity building arising through their experiences of cooking and sharing a meal together” USC student dietitian, Renee Curran reports.
One of the participants said, “My wife used to do all the cooking but I live on my own now so I need to learn how to cook for myself. I can make spaghetti bolognese but I learnt to make it with lots of grated veggies, which is even better. Next week we are learning to read food labels, so that should be good”.
