Nutrition Education Programs & Activities

The Eat Healthy, Be Active curriculum includes six workshops targeting adults. These are offered as a series of six classes or as individual workshops. In these workshops, participants learn nutrition information, budgeting skills, and physical activity tips. Serving Up MyPlate is a collection of classroom materials that helps elementary school teachers integrate nutrition education into Math, Science, English Language Arts, and Health classes. The curriculum introduces the importance of eating from all five food groups using MyPlate materials. Students also learn how important physical activity is to staying healthy.

We work with a wide array of community partners, including libraries, schools, community centers, and food pantries, to host six-week-long workshops where participants learn culinary, nutrition, and budgeting skills. In each class, a volunteer chef leads families, parents, adults, teenagers, and children in making a recipe while a volunteer nutritionist teaches relevant nutrition principles. Participants take home books from our Cooking Matters® curriculum and enjoy a tasty meal that we all cook together. Courses meet once a week for two hours over six weeks.

Our Nutrition Education team offers cooking demonstrations at our program sites and Mobile Markets®. With the help of our volunteers, our nutrition educators demonstrate knife skills, budgeting tips, and how to make healthier choices, all while preparing an easy, delicious recipe that participants can sample. Participants also receive a recipe to take home.

Our staff and volunteers lead free, hour-long Cooking Matters at the Store (CMATS) tours at local supermarkets throughout the five boroughs. Participants learn tips on budgeting, reading food labels, picking out fruits and vegetables, and making healthier food choices. At the end of each tour, participants receive a $10 credit to shop following the MyPlate food group guidelines.

Our shopping tours are a great complement to our six-week course since participants review what they learned in class in a real-life setting. This activity is a fun experience and puts your learning to the test.

City Harvest Produce Pals combines nutrition and culinary education with free produce distribution, ensuring that families have both the skills and the ingredients to prepare delicious, affordable meals. At some partnering New York City schools where we provide nutrition and culinary education programming, City Harvest distributes free bags of nutritious, versatile produce, like sweet potatoes, apples, and onions to students and their families once a month. 

In a city where 1 in 4 children does not always know where their next meal is coming from, Produce Pals makes food distribution as convenient as possible for families so that students have access to the nutritious foods they need to thrive.