Good Eats cooking class teaches healthy eating in Beaumont

If passersby sense that something’s cooking at the Alice Keith Park Community Center, they won’t be wrong.

Since March 17, the center has become the makeshift kitchen for Good Eats’ Healthy Eating Cooking Classes, with nearly two dozen students and workers cooking up breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks every Tuesday and Thursday through mid-April.

Participants are learning more than new recipes to put on the family table, though. They’re also getting food for thought about nutrition, better food choices and how to maintain a healthy diet even in a food desert.

That was of particular importance to Dr. Wilma R. Jackson, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Lamar University, who is at the helm of the Good Eats program.

“It is an amazing opportunity to pour into the community and assist individuals and families in adopting healthier lifestyles,” she said.

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That opportunity fit perfectly with Good Eats’ purpose in the broader Be Well Beaumont initiative, of which it is among the 50 organizations comprising the steering committee.

And in bringing the program to the neighborhood with which they’ve established the Lamar South Park Neighborhood Partnership, it was one more way to be a good neighbor and steward of the region they also call home.

Jackson’s efforts on behalf of Lamar and the South Park community is “how we help our community be healthier and make healthier choices,” she said.

That community extends beyond the parameters of the South Park neighborhood but to other low-income and under-served Beaumont communities, with the group posting event flyers at several community locations like libraries, area schools, social media and more.

Be Well Beaumont, created in January 2024, grew out of the Be Well Baytown model as a way to expand programming to Southeast Texas.  It is an ExxonMobil-sponsored initiative led by MD Anderson, in an effort to “mobilize the community to promote wellness and stop cancer before it starts,” according to a statement provided by Jackson.

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The initiative unites local and regional partners to carry out community-led solutions that will make positive, long-lasting changes in people’s lives — focusing on topics like active living, sun safety, tobacco and alcohol effects and preventive care.

Now, there’s healthy eating on the Be Well agenda, thanks to another award of targeted funds from MD Anderson.

The purpose of the Good Eats class is multi-fold: “(1) teach participants how to prepare nutritious, budget-friendly, and appealing meals that taste good, (2) promote daily consumption from all food groups and (3) provide guidance on meal planning and preparation to support long-term healthy habits,” according to the program’s statement.

Each session starts with a mini lesson on what the day’s recipe contains, what it does within your body and how it can impact your health in life-changing ways.

That’s community nutritionist Clanis Montes’ forte.

She goes way beyond the simple “eat your veggies” mantra many have known and hated since childhood, teaching people why “healthy foods” have earned that reputation.

To coin the oft-used phrase, Montes “makes it make sense.”

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Though there’s a scientific component to her talk — reviewing the facts while breaking down terms like prebiotics and probiotics — Montes finds a way to make seemingly complicated nutritional guidelines easy to digest.

She also creates and pre-tests each of the session recipes (offering alternative ingredients for those with dietary restrictions), giving step-by-step instructions on how to prepare the nutritionally valuable ingredients that will help her class of 15 to 20 students put healthier meals on the table at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

That was a draw for Sylvia Johnson, who’s looking to add variety and better nutrition to the meals she prepares.

“I love getting new ideas on what to cook, because sometimes you get in a rut cooking the same things,” she said. “Also, I want to stay healthy and take care of my body, because you only get one. And I want to encourage my daughter to eat healthy.”

That isn’t always easy for a 16-year-old who’s as often influenced by what friends are eating at school as she is by what mom is putting on the plate.

Getting her family on board with healthier choices was a goal for Miriam Garcia, who signed up for the class with her sister Gina Garcia.

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“I wanted to know how to introduce my family to eating healthier…so when we came here and realized this was also a nutrition class, that was so helpful,” Miriam said.

It’s changed how the sisters shop, even if it means a trip to the grocery store might take a little longer.

“Now we’re reading the labels when we go to the store,” Gina said. “We’ve realized that we were just eating junk, and now we’re eating better.”

Establishing the healthy eating habit at a young age is critical to overall community health, because diet-related issues that start in youth often grow into adulthood, leading to even more serious illnesses, Jackson said.

She points to a disturbing statistic already found in our local schools, where “the obesity rate is nearly 73%, which is higher than the state and national average,” Jackson said. “We’re giving tools to reach outside their comfort zone and break generational habits to be healthier.”

Although they may not be able to find all the new ingredients to which they’ve been exposed, Jackson’s team is also arming them with the knowledge and confidence to step beyond what they’ve become accustomed to in their own backyard — especially when the available options might be slim pickings. 

“We make sure that even though choices might be limited, you can still find healthier choices,” Jackson said. “We encourage people to look outside their community if they’re unable to find those foods.”

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In short, just because it’s not on the nearest shelf doesn’t mean it’s off limits, you just might have to think outside the box.

Recognizing that a trip across town to get better options for healthy foods might be difficult if transportation resources or associated fuel costs might be an untenable stretch on the budget, local community gardens and online delivery options could be a means to better eating access, Jackson suggested.

But first, you need to know what to put on the revised shopping list and what to with it once it’s sitting on your pantry or refrigerator shelf. That’s where the cooking class gets fun.

Following the introduction, the class breaks out like contestants on a Food Network cooking show.

They have measuring cups and containers in hand as they assemble the day’s ingredients and head back to their cooking stations, where a cooking pot and hot plate sit in the middle of each table.

At a recent class, healthy oatmeal was on the breakfast menu. This wasn’t the open a packet, add water, microwave and stir instant variety with shelf-stablizing additives, sugars and other multi-syllabic ingredients that would require a scientific manual to identify.

Montes’ recipe was simple — whole oats, fresh fruits like bananas, apples, blueberries, strawberries, chia seeds, cinnamon, honey and cow or almond-based milk. Chopped walnuts as a topping was also on the list.

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As the aroma of cinnamon quickly spread throughout the community center room throughout the near 15-minute cooking time required for the oats, a hum of conversation and laughter also spread.

It was like being in the kitchen cooking with family or friends, though most in attendance were strangers prior to gathering round the kitchen and joint cooking pot.

In a corner table, Shakita Davis laughed as members of her cooking team grabbed paper towels to sop up the milky oats that suddenly boiled over onto the hot plate.

What would a day in the kitchen be without a little bit of a mess, though?

Although they hailed from different parts of town — South Park, Pear Orchard, the west end and a student at Lamar University, they were united in purpose to start eating healthy.

“I know how to cook, but making it healthy was a challenge,” April Gallien said. “Even if you don’t go full blown eating healthy, I can start slowly with the things I can do and work up from there.”

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As the group’s pot cooked to completion, the conversation turned to what the former strangers from different neighborhoods had in common — their children’s picky eating habits, tricks they’ve learned to manage shopping, cooking and daily life demands.

It’s a different kind of nutritional component that Good Eats community coordinator Monica Mishaw says has been an added bonus.

“People that don’t even know each other come together and form teams,” she said. “So, (this class) also kind of brings the community together.”

That’s definitely the case for Johnson, a west end resident whose life doesn’t always put her in the path of fellow Beaumonters across town.

“It’s a long drive, but I’m going to sacrifice and do it,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what the next class will be.”