Seasonal Cooks’ Secret Sauce: Heaping Nutrition and Cultural Zest

December 23, 2022

Chaseedaw Giles Oldways Ambassadors Brenda Atchison and Glorya Fernandez walked a KHN reporter through two cooking demonstrations to showcase modern takes on cultural classics — like a cold black-eyed pea salad just in time for the new year, and a garlicky dill mojo sauce served over spinach salad. Last year, Kelly LeBlanc, director of nutrition at Oldways, shared the organization’s heritage-based food guide pyramids with KHN <a rel="nofollow" href="https://khn.org/news/article/food-guidelines-change-but-fail-to-take-cultures-into-account/">for a report on USDA food guidelines</a>. It’s the 10-year anniversary of Oldways’ A Taste of African Heritage nutrition curriculum, and this year, the curriculum became part of the Department of Agriculture’s <a rel="nofollow" href="https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/program-administration/snap-ed-toolkit-strategies-interventions">SNAP-Ed Toolkit</a>, a collection of interventions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program educational effort focused on helping low-income households make healthier food choices and reinforce healthy eating habits.