The experiences of cooking and eating often bring people together: Delicious and nutritious food has the power to unite people from a wide variety of backgrounds. However, these experiences are fundamentally different for people who are blind or visually impaired. At a Cooking Matters class at the Governor Morehead School (North Carolina’s school for the blind), staff, volunteers, and Cooking Matters interns were challenged to make and eat a meal while blindfolded to better understand the challenges of these tasks for blind or visually impaired people.
For the Cooking Matters team, this activity offered an excellent opportunity to create empathy with students in their new course. The course, a six-week culinary and nutrition education program, served students at the Governor Morehead School. Each week, a team consisting of a volunteer chef and a nutritionist taught about healthy eating and walked students through simple yet delicious recipes.
Due to the differences in cooking and eating for individuals who are blind or visually impaired, the Cooking Matters course needed to be adapted to be inclusive for this population. For example, a lesson on nutrition was more effective as a conversation rather than a demonstration. The team discussed the importance of incorporating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains into the students’ diets. They also broke down some of the diet fads about which many of the students had questions. For the culinary lessons, Chef Kevin, the culinary instructor, led the participants through making quesadillas, quiche, spaghetti and meatballs, and for the last celebratory lesson…chocolate chip cookies! This lesson was a blast for students, instructors, and interns alike.
For the fifth class, everyone met up at the local Food Lion for a grocery store tour. The class split up into smaller groups and toured each food group section. Instructors read out nutrition labels and explained what students should be aware of. At the end of the tour, students completed a “$10.00 challenge” to find the ingredients to make a meal including all five food groups for less than ten dollars! All students were able to complete the challenge and received a Food Lion gift card to cover the cost of their ingredients.
For the last class of the course, students split into two teams and battled for points in a game of “Nutrition Jeopardy”. The game was intense and lively, with students asking for point rundowns after each round and cheering their teammates on as they correctly answered questions. Betty, the Cooking Instructor for the North Carolina Division of Services for the Blind Career and Training Center, reached out later to thank the Cooking Matters team, “What an amazing night we had yesterday. The game was so competitive, everyone was talking about it all morning. Thank you so much for breathing life into our students.” After the end of the game, the team held a graduation ceremony and celebrated the end of the successful six-week course.
Although this class was meant for the students at the Governor Morehead School, the staff, volunteers, and interns contend that they learned just as much as the students. Each and every one of them came to class with huge smiles on their faces each day. They were patient as the team learned about working with people who are visually impaired and who placed their full trust in them throughout the course. The Community Health Education team is grateful for the opportunity to learn from our neighbors and for the challenge to expand the reach of nutrition education to be accessible to all members of the community. They are excited to report that they have been asked back for another class in July to teach a four-week course for teens and young adults at the Governor Morehead School.