A cooking intervention increased food literacy of students who frequently used the campus food pantry: A Pilot Program

Abstract

Objectives

Students who obtain food from a campus food pantry may benefit from participating in a nutrition/cooking intervention.

Participants and methods

Twenty-seven students 18–30 years of age attending a university in the southeastern US participated in the IRB approved study. One 2-hour class was offered each week for four weeks in the on-campus cooking laboratory. Subjects indicated how often they cooked a dinner meal at home and completed the Eating and Food Literacy Behaviors Questionnaire (EFLBQ) before and after participating in the program.

Results

The total EFLBQ, Factor 1 (Health and Nutrition) and Factor 3 (Food Preparation) scores, and the frequency of cooking a dinner meal at home were all higher post-program (all p < 0.05).

Conclusions

This pilot study suggests that an on-campus cooking program can increase the food literacy and frequency of cooking meals by university students who obtained items from the campus food pantry.

Keywords:

• University students
• food pantry
• food literacy
• cooking

Author contributions

Imani Carr collected and analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript under the direction of Georgianna Tuuri. Melissa Cater provided advice about the statistical methods to use to analyze the data and Imani Carr assisted in data collection and analysis and interpretation of the data. All authors reviewed and commented on subsequent drafts of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center Institutional Review Board.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch Project LAB943331 and the Ann Armstrong Peltier Professorship.