BushWok Cooking facilitates experiential food literacy & cooking skills programs in remote Australia
Roy Price
BAppSc Nutrition and Food Science (Nutritionist)
GradDip Dietetics (Dietitian)
Master of Public Health
Social Entrepreneur BushWok Cooking provides a "My Kitchen Rules"-type experience in remote settings which are familiar and friendly, using equipment, ingredients and recipes that are not threatening, in an environment that is both exciting and educational and enhances social cohesion, and where people can feel good about themselves and their abilities to prepare healthy family meals. BushWok Cooking is centrally located in Alice Springs and provides nutrition promotion services to remote communities in South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland as well as the Northern Territory. BushWok Cooking is a for-profit social enterprise that works at the urban town camp and remote Aboriginal community level and has pioneered the strategy of facilitating large-scale outdoor participatory catering events and cooking competitions, an innovative "edutainment" approach to promoting and reinforcing healthy cooking and eating where it is most needed, OUT BUSH. Our aim is to stimulate public health nutrition action through sharing healthy food preparation and cooking skills and techniques, and to inspire all of our clients to become healthy cooking and nutrition ambassadors for better public health. This is achieved through promoting and promulgating an engaging and uplifting community-focused program that:
- brings community together around healthy cooking and eating
- is mobile, self contained, and can be conducted anywhere the community wants
- is an inclusive "whole-of-community" event, and engages 50 to 70 community residents - women and men, young people and old people - all preparing and cooking food together at the same time
- produces a quick, nutritious, fresh and tasty banquet for up to 200 community members to share and enjoy
- has a strong nutrition, health promotion and community-building focus, and
- encourages participants to adopt healthy cooking and eating practices for the long term. BushWok Cooking complements the nutrition promotion services provided by others and provides an engaging educational activity designed to motivate and trigger the adoption of improved cooking techniques. Making healthy cooking and eating both desirable and rewarding motivates people to modify their food preparation practices so that new cooking behaviours can become sustainable habits. These outdoor events also provide an opportunity to share healthy lifestyle choices to help reduce the risk of developing preventable chronic diseases, including:
- Eating healthy food;
- Doing regular physical exercise;
- Seeing a doctor annually for check ups and management of any existing illness;
- Giving up smoking (or not taking it up); and
- Drinking alcohol at safe levels or not at all. This not only ensures that your overall program is a social triumph, but also contributes to community harmony and wellbeing through the goodwill and afterglow that lingers in the community following these positive uplifting events.
