Teaching healthy habits

• Simply Good Eating

Simply Good Eating

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WORTHINGTON — As Community Nutrition Educators with University of Minnesota Extension in Nobles County, Carol Langseth and Leticia Rodriguez have helped to teach children, refugees and newcomers to the community about proper eating habits for a combined 30 years.

Up until this year, they’d been known around town as nutrition education assistants, but the new name better reflects their role with the public. Their program has also changed names to Simply Good Eating.

The women, housed in the Extension office in the lower level of the Nobles County Government Center in Worthington, often take their program on the road. They lead presentations at the West Learning Center for English Language Learners (ELL), do classroom and after-school programming at both Prairie Elementary and Worthington Middle School — as well as the Nobles County Integration Collaborative — and provide information to clients of the local food shelves, WIC (Women, Infants and Children program), Job Club and the Unity House, among others.

Funded through the educational component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (formerly known as the food stamp program), Langseth and Rodriguez use a research-based curriculum created by the University of Minnesota.

“Our participants have to qualify,” said Rodriguez, adding that the service is free. Simply Good Eating’s target audience is women and children.

“If we go into a school, it has to (meet guidelines as serving) 50 percent free and reduced lunches,” Langseth said.

Every classroom at Prairie Elementary and Worthington Middle School meets that guideline, while limited classrooms in other school districts in the area also qualify.

In the schools, Langseth and Rodriguez are known as the food ladies, the Little D’s (generated from a program they did on dairy), or the nutrition ladies — all titles to which they answer.

“They love us everywhere we go because we bring food,” Rodriguez said with a laugh.

“When we go into the classroom, we’re not grading them, we’re not giving them a test. We’re doing something fun with them,” added Langseth. “But, we’re also introducing some new foods to them. We want them to try it — we never make them eat it. What’s really sad is I had some second-graders who didn’t know what a grapefruit was.”

Just as they introduce foods like grapefruit and veggie pizzas to children, they also teach parents about the foods their children should be eating.

“We’re always pushing more fruits and vegetables, low sodium, low fat, (sugar content) and label reading,” Rodriguez said.

Many families new to the United States are more accustomed to a diet filled with fruits and vegetables, but as their kids enter school, the kids want to eat foods like they are served in the cafeteria.

“(That’s) not necessarily the healthiest food,” she added. “We do say they can stay true to their likes and their cultures.”

With culture and language often a barrier for families participating in the program, Langseth and Rodriguez have been known to provide more than just nutritional information.

In one instance, they learned from a refugee that she was using Drano as a shampoo, and in another, they learned some new African immigrants were eating hamburger raw because they didn’t know how it was to be prepared.

Cooking classes are taught to adults, using healthy recipes that focus on using herbs and spices rather than salt. Physical activity has also been incorporated into their program within the last couple of years.

Other subjects related to nutrition include eating meals together and turning of the TV during meal time.

“Part of it is, as a parent, you want to do the best job for your children,” added Langseth. “They hear a lot about nutrition. They’re very willing to try things and listen.”

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