Today, Scott is participating in his fifth community cooking class at Second Harvest’s teaching kitchen. He’s a participant in Medically Tailored Meals, a 16-week study conducted by Spokane Teaching Health Clinic in partnership with Second Harvest’s nutrition education program.
The study seeks to determine whether and how providing cooking education and healthy food for free can improve diet-related quality of life for people who have Type 2 diabetes and a Medicaid-sponsored health insurance.
Patients joining the study sign up for 12 weekly classes at Second Harvest’s teaching kitchen. After each class at The Kitchen, they receive ingredients for 10 meals which are medically tailored to their needs.
At today’s class, called Powerful Plant Proteins, Scott made lentil soup and quinoa salad.
“The soup is fantastic, I really like that,” Scott says. “The salad’s good, too.”
Reducing how much meat he eats has been part of Scott’s diabetes diet plan.
“Going meatless, I’m trying to do that at least once a week now,” he says. “I’m learning how to do that and still make it taste decent.”
Scott says he typically cooks for himself, so the recipes he receives from cooking classes have been useful in making meals at home.
“I’m using more lentils than I’ve ever used before,” Scott says. “I’m not a big lentil guy most of the time, but they’re not bad.”
