'Eat Dat!' cookbook shows how to be healthy on a budget
The Tulane Prevention Research Center is offering an 80-page cookbook as a free, downloadable pdf online. (Photo by Krzysztof Puszczynski, illustration by Melinda Viles)
Eating nutritious and healthy meals can be affordable, and a new cookbook from the Tulane Prevention Research Center gives residents in New Orleans and across the country a guide.
With 80 pages of recipes and healthy eating tips, the Eat Dat! cookbook, which is available as a free, downloadable pdf, breaks down the costs and nutritional content of delicious and often quick meals.
“We created the cookbook based on feedback from neighborhood associations and community-based groups we work with in New Orleans,” says Keelia O"Malley, assistant director of the Prevention Research Center at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, who initiated and supervised the recipe book project.
“Our partners told us people need and would use information about how to eat healthy on a budget. They told us this was a huge barrier for them to help people become healthy.”
The recipes were created and priced mostly by post-bachelor degree students in the Tulane Dietetic Internship Program, who are studying to become registered dietitians. The interns, who each spent a week working at the Prevention Research Center, also wrote several pages of tips at the end of the book. Tulane staff and graduate students also helped with pricing and nutritional facts labels, as well as editing and compiling the recipes into the final product.
“The Dietetic Internship focuses on preparing future registered dietitians to address the nutritional needs of communities and clients,” says Marsha Piacun, clinical assistant professor and director of the Dietetic Internship Program in the Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences.
“This cookbook project taught the interns useful skills to address other factors, such as limited family income, that may impact eating habits.”
Limited printed copies will be distributed throughout New Orleans communities, courtesy of the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement & Development and the Xavier University Health & Wellness Center.
Naomi King Englar is the communications coordinator for the Tulane Prevention Research Center and the Tulane Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health.
