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Students prepare a meal at the teaching kitchen.

Permanent On-Campus Teaching Kitchen to Open this Fall!

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For the past few years, UCLA has hosted Teaching Kitchen classes at Sur La Table in Westwood. While these classes have been free for students, UCLA is required to pay to use their space, and there are extreme limitations on the number of students that can participate. In order to provide hands-on skills and food literacy to the wider student body, an on-campus teaching kitchen is scheduled to open on October 29th at the Los Angeles Tennis Center!

Food literacy is an incredibly nuanced term. See below for Kaitlin Reid’s (Nutrition Health Educator and Co-Founder, UCLA Teaching Kitchen) definition of food literacy. Try using it as a mental checklist for both the aspects of food literacy that you feel you understand well, and those that you’d like to learn more about.

“If someone were to improve their food literacy, they would essentially be improving their knowledge and skills, along with their attitudes and behaviors around food and nutrition. More specifically, someone with a higher degree of food literacy would:

  • understand the components of a healthy diet
  • understand how and where to buy food
  • understand the nuances of food security, and other public health related food issues
  • know how to budget for (healthy) eating
  • know how to cook/prepare food, and maybe even how to grow it
  • know how to use food to make more sustainable choices
  • know how to have a healthy relationship with food (and your body)
  • know how to use it to connect to other people/other cultures
  • know how to use food/nutrition to prevent disease and improve health

Food literacy is about far more than basic nutrition.”

A Brief History of the “Teaching Kitchen”

While the importance of a healthy diet in achieving good overall health cannot be overstated, most medical education curricula lack sufficient training in nutrition. One study shows that only 25% of medical schools require students to take a nutrition course and fewer than 25% of physicians feel confident in discussing diet and exercise with their patients!

Dr. McMinn's Pyramid of Wellness visual shows the actual foundations of health and well-being.

There is no surgery or prescription drug that can replace good nutrition. However, this message is not properly conveyed to medical students.

To remedy this, in 2006, the Culinary Institute of America and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health–Department of Nutrition launched the Healthy Kitchens, Healthy LivesⓇ conference, aiming to provide health professionals with both a greater understanding of nutrition science and the tools and recipes needed to make a lasting impact on their patients.

As the program grew, participating health professionals were motivated to create their own teaching kitchens, each of which operated separately from one another. The Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC) was launched in 2016 in response to the need for a unified organization to oversee the many teaching kitchens. Now there are 41 teaching kitchens across the globe, eight of which are in California.

UCLA Teaching Kitchen at Sur La Table

UCLA has been part of the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative since 2016. Janet Leader (Associate Director of Nutrition Programs, Fielding School of Public Health) and Kaitlin Reid (Nutrition Health Educator, UCLA Student Health Education & Promotion) have been key pioneers in its inception and growth thus far.

When the UCLA Teaching Kitchen began hosting classes at Sur La Table in Westwood, the classes were geared solely towards health professional students. Since then, it has grown to reach the wider UCLA community, including classes for students recruited through Food Security Resources during Fall 2018.

The effects of these workshops on student wellness are promising: 96% reported an increased ability to eat balanced meals, 27% had connected with someone they met in class after one month, and 96% (an increase of 25% from the start) understood that half of your plate should be fruits and vegetables.

Students prepare a meal at the teaching kitchen.

Graduate students participate in a Teaching Kitchen Class at Sur La Table in Westwood (2017).

 

Keep an Eye Out for the Launch of the On-Campus Teaching Kitchen on October 29th!

The future of the Teaching Kitchen is uncertain and exciting. The new kitchen at the tennis center has a maximum occupancy of only 12 students, but an auditorium/reception hall will be built to potentially serve larger groups. Some additional possibilities for ways to use the space are as a food prep area for those that don’t have access to a kitchen, training student interns in kitchen management, and hosting cultural food events.

Kaitlin Reid envisions an impactful future for the UCLA Teaching Kitchen:

“I believe [food] is the single most significant factor in the future of politics, environmentalism, economics, technology, health and healthcare, and ultimately of humanity. And if food is the future, now, more than ever before, education on food/nutrition is crucial.

What would it look like if every single student, staff, and faculty member were able (or perhaps even required!) to participate in experiential learning via the UCLA Teaching Kitchen? If UCLA is in fact, a birthplace of innovation and culture change, then why not dream really really big?”

For more information on the classes that have been hosted at Sur La Table, check out this blog post written by Kaitlin Reid in December 2017.

Finally, check out this resource for building the perfect meal in 5 simple steps! This beautiful infographic provides:

  1. Thousands of potential combinations of nutritious proteins, vegetables, smart carbs, and healthy fats, with in-depth cooking instructions for each.
  2. A guide to portioning ingredients.
  3. A guide to seasoning food with suggested spice profiles of 10 different worldly cuisines.
  4. Instructions on the order in which to season your food.
  5. Additional flavor tips.

Patience Olsen is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Civil Engineering. In addition to blogging for the EatWell pod, she is a PD for the ASCE Environmental Design project and the Events Coordinator/Social Media Manager for AWWA.

ANR_061115-152

9 “Health-Washed” Foods and How to Spot Them

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Processed sugar–known nemesis to good health– hides itself under almost 100 different names on packaging, often to confuse the consumer into thinking the food they’re eating is healthy. Sugar in dessert such as cake is almost unavoidable, but at least in this case, the consumer usually knows that cake contains a high amount of sugar and understands it to be “unhealthy”. The greater issue arises when product marketing leads one to assume that they’re eating well, yet they still eat much more added sugar than they intend to. 

This article should not necessarily serve as dietary recommendation, but as a reminder to check the nutrition facts and ingredients on items before you buy. In general, it’s good practice to search for more wholesome foods, with ingredients you can see and would personally use when cooking (eg. not hydrolyzed soy protein, disodium phosphate, MSG, high fructose corn syrup, etc), and understand that sugar may be listed under a variety of different names. If you’re hoping to avoid or cut down on processed sugar, make sure to check the sugar content on these items especially:

Peanut butter

One leading brand of peanut butter contains 3g of added sugar per 2 tbsp. While this number is relatively low compared to other items on the list, this example proves that added sugar can be hidden in plain sight, contributing to an overall increase in your total daily value.

Tip: Watch out for peanut butters that contain more than one or two ingredients; these one or two ingredients should be peanuts and salt.

Nut milk

Nut milks are often advertised as a healthful alternative to dairy milk. While they typically contain fewer calories and less saturated fat, it is easy to consume a significant amount of added sugar if you’re not cautious to look at the packaging.

  • Soy Milk: 5g added sugar per 1 cup milk
  • Almond Milk: 7g/cup
  • Cashew Milk: 7g/cup
  • Coconut Milk: 5g/cup

Tip: Oat milk is generally sold without any added sugar because it contains 7 grams of naturally occuring sugar. Unsweetened varieties of the milks listed above can be just as delicious, especially creamier options such as cashew milk and coconut milk.

Cereal and Granola

Listed below are the sugar contents for three types of cereal that are generally accepted as unhealthy:

  • Sugar-coated flake cereal: 10g added sugar per ¾ cup cereal
  • Oats and marshmallow cereal: 10g per ¾ cup
  • Colorful fruit cereal: 7.5g per ¾ cup

A quick Google search reveals dozens of lists of supposed “healthy” cereal brands (1, 2, 3), but two issues arise. The first issue is that many of these cereals are available only online for purchase. The second, more important issue, is that some of these “healthier brands” may contain more added sugar.

  • Crunchy granola: 10g per ¾ cup
  • Whole grain peanut clusters: 12g per ¾ cup

Tip: For those looking for a low to no sugar option in stores, look for Bob’s Red Mill Muesli, which contains dates and raisins instead of any added sugar or Original Cheerios, which contains only 1g sugar per cup serving.

An even easier (and often cheaper!) alternative is plain oatmeal, to which you can add any fruit, nuts, seeds, nut butters, milks, or spices such as cinnamon for a completely customizable breakfast just as delicious as its sugar-laden cereal counterpart.

Single-serving oatmeal packages

Single-serving flavored oatmeals might not be the best alternative when cutting down on sugar. One issue is that these oatmeals advertise that they are “Heart Healthy” because they contain whole grains. While they’re not exactly lying, they completely avoid mentioning their sugar content (for good reason).

For example, a banana walnut oatmeal boasts that it is “made with oats, wheat, barley, rye, quinoa, and flaxseed” and that it contains “no high fructose corn syrup”, but fails to mention that the second ingredient after oats is brown sugar, and that the package contains a total of 19g of sugar.

An instant raisin, date, and walnut oatmeal contains a lower amount: only 11g of sugar. While some of this is inevitably natural sugar in raisins and dates, the second ingredient after oats is “sugar”, so it’s safe to assume that most of the sugar in this oatmeal is unhealthy sugar. 

Tip: In both of these cases, you can just as easily make it yourself, by buying plain quick oats or steel cut oats, as long as the only ingredient is oats. Then add any toppings you like, including fruit or dried fruit for sweetness, milk, nuts, nut butters, and spices to create your personal breakfast masterpiece.

Dried fruit

While dried fruit is almost always a preferred alternative to other sweet snacks, if you are not actively searching for the unsweetened variety, you will find yourself consuming unnecessary added sugar.

  • Dried cranberries: 29g of sugar per ¼ cup cranberries (26g of added sugar when compared to an unsweetened variety with 3g natural sugar per ¼ cup)
  • Dried mangoes: 32g sugar per ⅓ cup dried mango (12g of added sugar when compared to an unsweetened variety with 20g natural sugar per ⅓ cup)
  • Dried pineapple: 31g sugar per ¼ cup (5g of added sugar when compared to an unsweetened variety with 26g natural sugar per ¼ cup)

Tip: Some dried fruits that are very rarely sweetened are dates and raisins.


Trail mix

Trail mixes can contain a high amount of added sugar if they have chocolate pieces or any of the aforementioned sweetened dried fruits. As a general guideline, trail mixes with only raisins or dates are added-sugar-free, but if the trail mix contains cranberries, cherries, pineapple, mango, or crystallized ginger, it will often contain added sugar.

Tip: The best way to ensure that you’re getting exactly what you want from your trail mix is by making large batches of it yourself. Adding 80%-90% dark chocolate doesn’t increase sugar content by much, and it’s easy to adjust the flavor and sweetness by adding different types of nuts and unsweetened dried fruits.


Protein bars

Protein bars are advertised as a great catalyst for post-workout muscle regeneration, but many are just as sugary as any dessert. Just as cereals would much rather emphasize the whole grains they contain than their high sugar content, protein bars would much rather emphasize their high protein content and the energy they provide, ignoring how much of that “energy” comes from processed sugars.

  • Energy bars: 21g sugar per bar: Not only do these bars list “Organic Brown Rice Syrup” (another fancy name for sugar) as the first ingredient, the list also includes “Organic Cane Syrup” and “Barley Malt Extract”.
  • Cherries and berries bar: 16g sugar per bar: While in this bar, much of the sugar content come from the fruit it contains, the fact is that the first ingredient is “Organic Brown Rice Syrup”. In essence, there is more brown rice syrup in this bar than there is oats, the second ingredient.

Tip: Look for low sugar alternatives on your local grocery store shelves! There are many options include no or little added sugar or are sweetened with natural sweeteners such as monk fruit extract.

Sauces

This may be more surprising than some of the others on the list. The amount of sugar is so small, that, like in peanut butter, it often goes unnoticed, but may be significantly increasing the amount of sugar you consume.

  • Marinara sauce: 4g sugar/ ½ cup sauce
  • Sriracha: 3g sugar/1 tbsp
  • Ketchup: 4g sugar/1 tbsp ketchup
    Barbeque sauce: 8g sugar/1 tbsp BBQ sauce (sugar is the first ingredient in this BBQ sauce!)

Tip: Low sugar alternatives to these sauces do exist! As long as you’ve got an eye out for lower-sugar or sugar-free options and are fortunate to live near grocery stores that sell these alternatives, it’s not too difficult to find similar tasting, healthier options for a comparable price.

Yogurt

Just like “healthy” cereals like to advertise the whole grains they contain, and “healthy” protein bars like to advertise the high amount of protein they contain, yogurts often like to emphasize that they are low-fat and high in protein, but rarely mention the high amount of sugar they contain.

  • Strawberry probiotic yogurt: 12 g sugar/ 4oz serving
  • Original mixed berry yogurt: 13g sugar/ 4oz serving

In both of these examples, some of this is added sugar, and some is naturally occurring milk sugar. Comparing with the added-sugar-free yogurts listed below, these two contain approximately 8g of added sugar.

Tip: Mix in some fresh fruit with unsweetened yogurt to give it the same sweetness, but with more fiber.

Patience Olsen is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Civil Engineering. In addition to blogging for the EatWell Pod, she volunteers at the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden on campus, and is a member of the ASCE Environmental Design project.

A chat with the garden coordinators on the Urban Gardening Certificate Program

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To better understanding the motivation behind the Urban Gardening Certificate Program, I spoke with some of the key leaders behind the program. Mark Biedlingmaier and Ana Laura Paiva, two of the five Garden Oversight Committee members who oversee management of the jane b semel HCI Community Garden, each spoke with me about the impact that urban gardening has had on them, and the future they envision for it.

Volunteer work day at the jane b semel HCI Community Garden.

Q: What was your experience with the start of the garden at UCLA?

Mark: “When I transferred, I started plugging into different social spaces, and since I had a lot of gardening and farm experience, I joined Dig. It was Jane Semel’s, Founder and Visionary of the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center at UCLA, idea to create a garden on top of the amphitheater. Two GFI (Global Food Initiative) Fellows, Jacob Garson and Daniel Shen, were involved in jane b semel HCI Community Garden, and when they graduated, I picked up where they left off. Ian Davies, Steven Eggert, Cloudy Xu, Dr. Wendy Slusser, the Semels, One Gun Ranch, UCLA Recreation, Mick DeLuca, campus architect Jeff Averill and many other passionate individuals each played enormous roles in the development of the garden.” 

(Special thanks to all members involved with the garden in its early days can be found at the bottom of this page.)

Q: Why do you think we need and enjoy gardening to the level that we do?

Ana Laura: “Gardening is a return to our roots, and growing our own food is an encouragement to take better care of ourselves. Taking care of our environment at a local scale inspires us to take care of it at a global scale.” 

Mark: “I got into gardening because it taught me to be more internally reflective on my health and how I relate to people. Looking after life and having that attention on something other than yourself gives a larger perspective.”

Q: What makes the urban gardening community so unique?

Ana Laura: “I’ve met a lot of inspiring people through gardening. It’s a very welcoming environment; you’re coming into a space where it doesn’t matter whether you have tremendous experience or are literally coming into a garden for the first time. There’s always something you can help out with or something new to explore. Then, the guerilla gardening movement and WWOOFing create a greater gardening network of passionate people.” 

Q: What do you see as the future of urban gardening? What role might the HCI garden play in that?

Mark: “Currently, the jane b semel HCI community is in its infancy. We’ve been asking ourselves, ‘what is our exact niche?’ We want to engage more with the campus faculty and staff, not just the students. Personally, I’d like to see more people growing food, edible landscapes, and dining halls pulling more produce from operations on campus. I’d like to find ways in which we can further integrate our campus growing efforts with food security and basic needs-related projects.

In general, resources are only becoming more finite and the people who are consuming those resources are expanding. The way we approach our daily lives has to be thought about more critically and urban gardening is an excellent way to create more balance in our food systems. UCLA as a public research institution can play a large role in shaping not only the urban gardening movement but the culture and policy around it. LA, as a megacity, can serve as an experimental playground for that.”

Q: How can people take their experiences at the garden into the rest of their everyday lives?

Ana Laura: “You can join other community gardens you may know of, or try container gardening at home. I see gardening and growing your own food as a very grounding process. There’s an interesting study published that shows that there are antidepressants in the soil and many other benefits of getting your hands in the dirt. The amount of care that it takes for our plants, flowers, grains, herbs, broccoli, beans, tomatoes, or watermelons to grow teaches us what it takes to take care of ourselves, and our communities. The best part in all of this is sharing and enjoying our experiences in the garden, and the wonderful food!”

(The study on antidepressants in the soil that Ana Laura is referring to was published in 2007, and can be found here. An excellent article detailing the findings of the study can be found here.)

After completing the program, participants are encouraged to continue to come out to future workshops covering new topics as well as crowd favorites. Ana Laura offers other possible next steps after completing the program: “You can find volunteer opportunities at the Veterans’ Garden, with Ron Finley, Guerilla Gardener in LA, with Food Forward, which donates surplus produce to hunger relief agencies, or with the Seed Library of Los Angeles. You can also always come back to volunteer at our garden!” 

To learn more about the jane b semel HCI Community Garden:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/amphitheatergarden

Instagram: @HCIgardens

Email: hcigardens@ucla.edu

Sign up for the mailing list here! https://ucla.us18.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=23cc009df9eb0fd1d338f2b6d&id=8445a6df09

Patience Olsen is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Civil Engineering. In addition to blogging for the EatWell Pod, she volunteers at the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden on campus, and is a member of the ASCE Environmental Design project.