By Amy Carboneau
4/27/10
Imagine holding a class with 12 knife-wielding students who have never really learned the skills to use one. This is Day One for Take Back the Kitchen, an organization providing Dudley Square youngsters and adults the skills and knowledge they need to cook and to lead healthier lives because of it.
Kelly Dunn, 25, is one of three women who help run the program.
"There aren't a lot of programs in place that teach people how to think for themselves when it comes to cooking and eating anymore," said Dunn. "We really are doing this because we believe that it's unjust that people in our community aren't growing up with the skills that they need to cook "
Particularly in low-income communities like Roxbury, children often provide meals for themselves while their parents work late, said Dunn. Eating fast food seems to be the cheap and easy option. One of the primary goals of Take Back the Kitchen is to educate the children of the community about the risks of poor eating habits.
According to the Take Back the Kitchen website, many low-income families are prone to health problems due to poor diet, and lack of nutrition.
"It has been repeatedly emphasized throughout professional studies that low-income communities of color are particularly at risk for diet-related health problems such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. These health complications take a significant toll on our community, its vibrancy, and its life expectancy."
Charmaine Burrell, 39, is one of the women who attend the Urban College of Boston class Tuesday nights. She has four children, including an 8-year-old daughter who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
"You have to have some sort of motivation," said Burrell. "And I don't wanna be a statistic."
Burrell is taking the class so she can provide better meals for her daughter. "There's so many other things I've introduced her to," said Burrell, "so it's not just the same old dishes over and over."
"If I learn to cook different then she'll eat different," Burrell said of her daughter, whose favorite new dish is vegetarian pizza. Burrell admitted, it's all about "making it healthy."
Whittier Street Health Center is a local primary healthcare provider for the Roxbury community. They offer a diabetes clinic and education to the 15 percent of Whittier patients who have Type 2 diabetes. Adeola Ogungbadero, manager of quality initiative at Whittier, said Type 2 diabetes in children is getting worse across the United States.
Fortunately because of programs like this, communities can learn about the importance of healthy eating, which may prevent diseases such as diabetes.
Another member of the Urban College of Boston class, Janice Phillips, is taking the class to teach her children better eating habits as well.
"I decided I want to take a healthy cooking course because I think it's important for kids to know about what they're eating, and what it does to you body, whether its harmful or good for your body," said Phillips, 46.
"Our instructor here, Kelly, she tells us everything that's good and everything that's bad, and amazingly enough, you have more bad things.... The foods that we're eating have more hidden bad stuff for us than we ever thought," said Phillips.
But Phillips also notes how much easier it can be to eat junk food.
"If you really check the prices, the junk food is a lot cheaper in the market than the healthier stuff. I guess that's why more people eat junk food," said Phillips, "because they have the money for it and cost of living has increased immensely, and that's where their money is going; the cheaper stuff."
Price is a key factor for unhealthy eating within low-income communities like Roxbury. But Dunn tries to teach her students what many residents don't know: how affordable eating healthy can be.
"There's this myth, you know, that healthy eating is expensive," said Dunn, "so we do a lot of work trying to expose that that's a myth."
Dunn offers her students several options when it comes to saving money and eating healthy. "Buy things in bulk. Buy them dried - you don't have to buy things pre-prepared," says Dunn. "Do a lot of prep at one time and freeze things so you don't have to cook every meal for yourself. Make a giant pot of soup and eat it all week long. Buy the less expensive cuts of meat; don't just buy chicken breasts, buy a whole chicken. Buy fruits and vegetables that are on sale."
Take Back the Kitchen seems to have found its niche, collaborating with several long-term partners, like community schools, but also in working out of Dudley Square's own Haley House Bakery Café.
Haley House opened in Roxbury's Dudley Square neighborhood five years ago, the same time Take Back The Kitchen,which started as cultural sensitivity classes in Brighton, was looking for a new location. It is now a full-time program, offering nearly 200 classes a year in health education and culinary instruction.
Bing Broderick is the business and marketing director for Haley House. He describes their arrival to Dudley Square as a calling. "There were very few options for healthy eating here," said Broderick. "Basically, all the fast food shops and nothing else." So, when the café, described by Broderick as a "well-kept secret," opened in the summer of 2005, collaboration with Take Back the Kitchen began that fall.
"I don't think it's unfair to describe it as a family," said Broderick, of the café.
As soon as the café closes at 4 p.m., there are often times classes from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. taught by Dunn, or the other two chefs, Laura Zientek, or Didi Emmons, who helped found the program.
The classes are divided into two parts: kitchen skills and health education.
"So we're able to look at all the different issues, you know, what is making it onto our plates and why is it all this packaged, commercialized food instead of fresh fruits and vegetables," said Dunn. "We talk a lot about what happens when you let giant corporations cook your food for you. You know, they add more fat, they add more salt, they add all these artificial flavorings to make you eat the food, but they don't really care about your health. So we teach them about ingredients, just knowing how to decipher an ingredients label, what's really good for you, what's not so good for you."
"Before you can do anything, you have to feel comfortable and you have to build up your confidence of, you know, wow, I really can do this, I can make a meal myself," added Dunn. "Cause that's something that's being taken away from people more and more these days."
"So the whole goal of our program is to teach people how to cook, and empower people with these skills and knowledge in the hopes that they will educate others," Dunn said. It is a simple concept that the program lives by: "Learn to Cook. Pass it on."