The
Mini Cooking Club is a charity which runs sessions for children and adults with
mentalhealth concerns, but also nutrition workshops for anyone who wants to learn
more about healthy eating. In these workshops, Cecilia - the club’s founder -
teaches things like the importance of the “Eat Well Plate”, understading food
labelling and cooking nutritious food at home.
We just finished working with Evolve. Evolve is a free, confidential and friendly
service for stimulant and cannabis users, and their families living in
Southwark. It is run by a lovely woman called Maggy. She works
hard with her team to provide fully-trained one-to-one support, facilitate
groups and run regular drop-in sessions.
What is the relationship between nutrition and
drugs use, and why did Evolve team up with The Mini Cooking Club? I went to see
Maggy to ask her views on healthy eating, how it can empower lives, and how she
found the Cecilia’s nutrition workshop.
Me:W hy did Evolve and The Mini Cooking Club team
up?
Maggy: At Evolve, we realised the importance of
understanding food, how it impacts your life and how it can play an empowering
role in the recovery process. Since there is a lot of misinformation out there
on nutrition, we decided it would be good for staff to have nutritional
training so they could give the clients they were supporting the best advice on
how to make a positive impact on their lives simply by changing their eating
habits. We got in touch with the Copleston inviting Cecilia to provide
nutrition workshops!
Me: So what is Evolves’
ethos?
Maggy: We focus on emotional well-being and
psychological wellbeing. We look at the whole person. It’s about how we can
support that person to make healthier choices in every aspect in their life. This
means one of the things we are concerned with is whether those we help are eating
a balanced diet.
Me: How did you
think The Mini Cooking Club could support you in achieving this?
Maggy: We were looking for nutrition courses that
we can refer clients to because clients are actually asking for it. They were
aware their lifestyles were changing with what they ate. Their physical health
was better – but many hadn’t had prior experience of knowing what a balanced diet
was - or how to cook or prepare nutritious food on a budget – and were keen to
gain insight on this.
Me: What did
they learn, for example?
Maggy: They learned that someone’s mood might be
affected because they eat food that is very processed and as a result their
bodies aren’t supporting the release of dopamine or serotonin.
Me: And why
would you say that is important?
Maggy: Because understanding the positive role of food
can be a tool for individuals to change their lifestyles. The current recovery
model that all treatment services advocate is recovery capital and supporting
individuals coming into treatment – not just to reduce their drug use but
to build up support networks and skills and knowledge that will help them go
back into a new community. Being able to budget, cook well, see food in a
social, joyous way as well as to understand what healthy eating is, is part of
that recovery capital.
Me: Does learning
help people to build part of a new identity?
Maggy: Definitely. If you take anybody who doesn’t
come from a background of substance use and enrol them on a cookery course they
invite their friends around as soon as possible. I would say it’s definitely
one part of being able to see themselves in a different way and a more positive
way. It’s also about people being able to nurture themselves – especially in
taking time to budget for good food. A lot of people haven’t experienced what
it is to be nurtured.
Me: I agree that food is a part of nurturing
yourself. What do you think of The Mini Cooking Club, whose aim is to teach essential
cooking skills to those who are underprivileged?
Maggy: I think the Mini Cooking Club is a wonderful
charity. Learning to cook on a budget is important, and part of working in this
area is to understand what else we can deliver to clients, and how we support those
who have very little money.
Me: What did you
think was important after the workshop with Cecilia?
Maggy: I think it is a really important idea to
help clients plan their meals and budget. I think clients don’t understand how many
calories they might need in a day and what a healthy snack is. It’s about structuring. We do a lot of helping
clients structure their days.
Me: What did you think of Cecilia and what did you like?
Maggy: Training was very good and she was very
relaxed and approachable trainer. She brought fun to it. I found the
information about how misleading food packages can be really interesting.
Nutrition can be quite complex. I thought it was good learning about how much
fat and sugar we should be aiming for in the day and understanding how we can
be misled by food industry and packaging.
Me: That’s
great!
All in all, Cecilia’s workshops sound invaluable,
and Evolve is an important organisation steadily making a difference in
individual’s lives. In this short interview, I learned a lot about how using
substances can negatively impact one’s health, and how focusing on healthy
eating can bring about immensely positive changes. Hopefully more and more
people will be able to access this information to make a positive difference in
their lives. I’ll be keen to attend a nutrition workshop myself!
By Jessica Heath
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