The Marquette Food Co-Op is offering a holistic approach to wellness by cooking and serving samples of food in-store. (Journal photo by Abby LaForest)

MARQUETTE — The Marquette Food Co-Op’s food demonstrations are helping customers learn about easy, nutritious meals right in store.

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 20, the Co-Op’s Education Coordinator Amanda Latvala will be cooking and offering samples of a high-protein dish inside the store as part of the Co-Op’s Food as Medicine Series, inviting people to chat with her about food, health and wellness. The new series is expected to continue on the third Tuesday of every month this summer, with the protein-based demo being the Co-Op’s second offering.

“It came from a need that we noticed in the community. What we notice is that (for) more people, chronic disease is such a problem in our country and in our area, chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, even some cancers …. Folks are getting more interested in using lifestyle as a way to treat their conditions and to manage their conditions,” Latvala said about the program’s origins. “I see they’re looking at lifestyle changes, so instead of just taking a medication to help them with their condition, they’re looking at lifestyle (changes.) Lifestyle factors and nutrition (are) one of the biggest ways to have an impact on your condition or even if you’re trying to prevent a condition from happening. Nutrition and what you eat is one of the biggest ways that’s going to assist our health, help our health or [send your health] the other way, where it’s going to perhaps make us closer to being sick. So we know we just saw that need in the community. We see it at large, looking at the United States as a whole but then even in our community, the need for food to help become more healthy.”

As a Registered Dietitian, Latvala takes the opportunity of the food demos to not only cook up something delicious for people to try, but also answer questions and have conversations relating to healthy eating and lifestyle choices based on accurate, evidence-based information.

“A common pattern and one word I have people ask about (is) sugar. We’re discovering that sugar is very sneaky in our food system, (getting) into our food products that normally, we wouldn’t think of as something being high in sugar. Food manufacturers put sugar into things to make us want to eat more because it stimulates parts of our brain that feel good. This signal is to (trigger) more of that feel-good feeling and a lot of food products have added sugar to them,” Latvala explained. “But there can be a more healthy counterpart or a different swap, so that’s a really big piece (of the demos.) I see people coming up asking about sugar, I see people coming up asking about plant-forward, plant-base(d) (foods)…I would say people want to know more about vegetables and how they’re supposed to eat the amount of vegetables they’re supposed to eat and sugar as being really common (questions) lately.”

The food demos are designed to be accommodating to people with a variety of allergen, diet and lifestyle restrictions. With this month’s focus being on protein, Latvala has different recommendations for those who might not want to get their proteins from a traditionally meat-based diet, and she’ll have different sources of protein on display in order to show people how to get protein from other sources. A few of her suggestions for non-meat protein meals include eating rice with beans and wheat toast with peanut butter.

“For people, because [the] plant-based, plant-forward (lifestyle) is really gaining popularity, I love it because everybody’s going to benefit from increasing the amount of plants in their diet. So getting more vegetables essentially – which is what we’ve always been told from day one [is that] we need to eat our vegetables — that hasn’t changed. We’re just highlighting that piece more with the cooking aspect,” Latvala elaborated. “So (with) the plant-forward, plant-based (diet), folks are thinking about protein, because that’s one of the big thoughts when thinking about (eating) plant-based, ‘Well, what about protein?’ (There are) so many plant-based sources of protein out there. Some examples (are) beans, lentils, nuts, [and] seeds. We find protein in almost everything, which is what folks are surprised to hear about. That’s what’s going to be really fun at my booth is (having) all these sources of protein that folks would not really necessarily think of.”

While Latvala will be doing the cooking during the food demos, she encourages others to become comfortable with creating home cooked meals for themselves, too. In addition to the food demos where attendees will watch Amanda cook on the Co-Op’s store floor, there are also opportunities to learn how to prepare a variety of cuisines throughout the year.

“We host public cooking classes, so those are open to the public and those are taught by outside instructors, though sometimes they’re taught by me as the dietitian. I, at least once a year, host a dietitian-led cooking class, so that class is geared towards nutrition information and healthy eating. We also have (general) public cooking classes with instructors that are specialized in some way of cooking, and those are open to the public for anybody to sign up for,” said Amanda. “What (the Co-Op) feel (is) important, the most important piece when it comes to eating healthy, is we have to learn how to cook, so our public cooking classes are just that….I always bring it down to the basics in every single public class that we have. I make sure our instructor(s) cover (what) they’re comfortable with or I’ll just jump in and teach some of those basic skills. Cooking (and) knowing how to cook is essentially the basis of your health (and) of healthy eating, because home cooked food is going to be much more healthy for us than eating from a restaurant or buying something that’s already been made for us or pre-packaged. When you cook, you get to control what’s in your food, so every public cooking class is designed to just teach cooking.”

Aside from cooking classes and food demonstrations, the Marquette Food Co-Op is also present within the Marquette County community. The Co-op is also at the Marquette Farmer’s Market a few times during the year, doing food demos and offering public information. The schedule is released on their social media pages and in their newsletter. They also attend community events such as the annual Marquette County Community Resource Fair and Northern Michigan University’s Fall Fest, educating people about shopping the Co-Op on a budget, nutritional eating and other services the store offers.

“How we’re different from a big box store is we have an entire department called Outreach. One of our core values is helping our shoppers eat better, eat and make choices that assist with their way of eating and giving them that knowledge [to know] where to start with things,” Amanda explained. “Basically we have a whole department devoted to getting information out to the public and with having a dietitian on staff, now we can get more nutrition information and verified nutrition information out to the public. That’s how our Outreach department operates. We have this great platform (where) we can (and) I can [share] information about healthy eating. That’s what’s really different about the Co-op is that we provide education to the public about healthy eating, so it’s pretty unique in our area to find such a setting.”

Additional questions about the Food as Medicine Series can be directed to Amanda Latvala at 906-225-0671, ext. 727 or alatvala@marquettefood.coop.

Information about the Marquette Food Co-Op and community events can be found on the Marquette Food Co-Op’s active Facebook page. The Marquette Food Co-Op is located at 502 W. Washington St., Marquette. Officials there can be contacted at 906-225-0671. To subscribe to the Co-Op’s newsletter, please visit the link at marquettefood.coop/owners/newsletter/.