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School is actually the best place to learn healthy cooking strategies and recipes. Incorporating a healthy cooking curriculum into Teen Living (Home Economics) classes in lieu of any unhealthy dishes traditionally taught and prepared in those classes is most ideal.

Healthy cooking strategies and recipes should be incorporated into Teen Living (Home Economics) textbooks, superseding other less healthy recipes; recipes should be carefully researched and selected on predication of their nutritional value as well as taste and simplicity to increase likelihood of use beyond the classroom.

The course should introduce oven and stir-frying, poaching, and other healthy cooking techniques, as well as healthy salt, sugar, and beverage alternatives. It should also address portion control for food and beverages.

Course Projects

Course projects might entail students preparing, at home and for their families, etc. either of the healthy dishes that they learn in class and/or that they find on their own. Instructors might require comments from family members via surveys as to their opinions of the meals and the likelihood that they’d regularly cook them. Students could also be required to write essays on their experiences and their opinions of the meals, etc.

Community (Student-Conducted) Healthy Cooking Demonstrations

Other course projects might consist of students conducting larger scale cooking demonstrations at their respective schools that would be open to parents/invitees and/or the general public, to raise awareness of healthy cooking alternatives and to generally promote community health.

For-Keeps Recipe Booklet Distribution to Teen Living Students, Etc.

All students should be distributed for-keeps healthy cooking recipe booklets for an at-home reference to prepare and share healthy meals with family, friends, etc. Students would cook all and/or a significant number of these recipes[1] in class to best determine those that they’d make or consider making regular meals.

Healthy cooking recipe booklets could also be distributed during and to attendees of community healthy cooking demonstrations, and be made retrievable otherwise in administrative offices at each school.

Processing Course Feedback

Feedback from students, etc. could be utilized to determine which healthy recipes are most favorable and would be included or excluded from future Teen Living (Home Economics) textbooks and other synonymous publications.

Conclusion

Incorporating a healthy cooking curriculum into Teen Living (Home Economics) classes would condition forward generations to embrace healthy cooking and eating patterns, and contribute substantially to reversal of generational patterns that have resulted in epidemic heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other illnesses, and could prospectively save millions of dollars in health care costs.

[1] The USDA’s MyPlate Recipes website http://pinterest.com/MyPlateRecipes/ is also an excellent source, among others, to peruse for healthy recipe ideas to incorporate into Teen Living text books and for-keeps recipe booklets that would be distributed to students and made available to the general public. The link to the USDA’s MyPlate website and others should also be cited in the prescribed publications as a reference for readers who might be interested in finding additional healthy recipes.