KA 703. Nutrition Education and Behavior

Growing and Using Herbs
This program was presented as a leader training to the Union County Extension Association of New Mexico clubs and members in March 2010.
Many people are begining to look at a new "old" way to season their foods, make lotion etc. They are looking to growing their own herbs in order to have fresh herbs for cooking and other purposes.
The member of the Union County EANM received information on growing herbs, where to grow, how to propagate, how to use herbs in cooking - what herbs work best with what kinds of foods, herb prepartion etc. 25% of the members reported that they have started a kitchen herb garden in their windows and 15% reported that they added a herb garden to their flower garden. The members also reported that it was a little harder to herbs that what they had thought and that you need to be sure a mark what plants are herbs and the variety in order to keep them straight when picking the herbs.

Make Your Salads Pop
This program was presented in April to the EANM clubs and members. Nutritional information on salads, various ingredients, salad dressings, and ways to make salads inviting, nutritious and delicious were presented. 50% of the members stated that they will use the recipes presented to make their salads more appealing and use them as more than a side dish.

Chocolate, Food of the Gods
A program presented by the extension home economist to Union County Extension Association of New Mexico clubs and members. This program was originally prepared by Paul Sanchez, Extension Home Economist, Los Alamos County.
It was presented to 45 members. The participants earned the history of chocolate, how it is grown, harvested and prepared for consumption. A chocolate quiz was given. Members tasted a variety of chocolate including, dark, cooking, white, milk. recipes were given to the participants. The participatns enjoyed the program, they learned that there are benefits to chocolate within reason, can be a part of the nutritious diet.

Kitchen Creations: Diabetic Cooking Schools
The Kitchen Creations Diabetic Cooking school is advertised by flyers, brochures, newspaper, radio and a leter is given to the doctors according to the number of diabetics they have as clients and they are asked to send it to their diabetics. The extension service provides a stamped envelope for their convenience.
Kitchen Creations Diabetic Cooking School was held at the Clayton Junior High School Home Economics room in April and May of 2010 to assist diabetics, people who cook for diabetics and those interested in learning more about nutrition meet their meal planning and diabetes management needs. There are around 200 people in Union County who have been diagnosed with diabetes according to the doctors in Clayton. The four-part cooking schools conducted in Union County and throughout the state were funded by the New Mexico Department of Health- Diabetes Prevention and Control Unit in partnership with the NMSU Cooperative Extension Service, which allows us to offer the classes free of charge to individual who are interested in diabetes education. 15 participants gainedskills in:
basic carbohydrate counting
reading nutrition labels
understanding portion sizes
planning and preparing meals that fit into the diabetic diet by lowering sodium, fat and carbohydrates.
A Certificed Diabetes Educator from Amarillo, Texas taught the lecture part of the classes while the extension home economist taught the cooking portion.
The extension home economist planned and shopped for the menu items, set up the facility, prepared refreshments,worked the participants in learning new cooking techniques, food safety in preparation and transportation and cleaning after the classes.
In the 2010 class, 50% of the participants knew they were diabetics and the other 50% assisted family members with their diabetes.
Interestingly 45% of the class was male. The men attended the classes with their spouse and the men were the ones with diabetes.
Two couples attended from the Felt, Oklahoma area and were very complementary on the program. They stated " We have told other members of the Felt community about this program and they need to participate the next time it is offered."
Participant evaluations shoed that by the end of the class participatns were reading more nutrition labels as they shopped, were making changes in the way they prepared their foods, had begun trying new foods, paying more attention to portion size both at home at when eating out. They also reported that they learned that "low fat" or "lite" usually means that there are more carbohydrates in those foods that in the regular foods.
Participants said that they "enjoyed the recipes and will use many of them in their food preparation".
They also stated that they enjoyed the hands on cooking and trying new foods that they had never tasted.
One participant came into the extension office to visit with the home economist. She had lost 50 pounds and was continuing to lose weight because of the information she learned at the Kitchen Creations class.

A monthly newsletter is compiled by the home economist. This newsletter has relevant articles on Nutrition, Health, Diabetes, Money Management and other consumer issues. It is distributed to a mail list of 260 homes from Roosevelt Co. and surrounding areas, an electronic version is also emailed to a list of 180 families. Positive comments are constantly made about the usefulness of the newsletter to the home economist.