Healthy Food on a Budget:
Many people today consider shopping for healthy foods a difficult, and unequivocally expensive venture. However, gaining insight to various food skills such as shopping smart can help dispel the myths that rest in that mindset (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 1).Cooking Matters at the Store is a free program developed by Share Our Strength’s The No Kid Hungry campaign that seeks to educate families on ways to effectively budget their money so they can prepare nutritious meals for their children (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 1).
Cooking Matters at the Store is backed by 20 years of experience of reaching out to low-income families nationwide through hands-on cooking courses (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 2). Generally, courses include a visit to a local grocery store, which is, many times, an enlightening experience for community members (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 2).
In 2010,Share Our Strength, the parent organization responsible for The No Kid Hungry campaign turned these grocery store tours into its own program, Cooking Matters at the Store which was previously called Shopping Matters (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 3). “These tours may be led by anyone, in any community, anywhere that people shop for food, and they include two specialized curricula – one for adults and one for WIC (Women, Infants and Children) parents” (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 3).
What Does a Tour Look Like?
The grocery store tour lasts generally between one and a half to two hours, during which time there are four main points of focus that include:
- Reading food labels
- Comparing Unit Prices
- Finding Whole Grain Foods
- Identifying 3 Ways to Purchase Produce
To cap off these tours, guides typically put on The $10 Challenge, an exercise that challenges participants to purchase a healthy meal for a family of four for $10 or less (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 4).
In addition, participants are also given a recipe booklet, shopping tips, and a reusable grocery bag (Share Our Strength, n.d., para 5).
Share Our Strength. (n.d.). Cooking matters at the store. Retrieved from————-http://cookingmatters.org/at-the-store