Evaluation Of Cooking Research Articles

Cooking with the Seasons for Health (CwS4H): An Innovative Intervention That Links Nutrition Education, Cooking Skills, and Locally Grown Produce to Increase Vegetable Intake among Limited-Resource Parent-Child Dyads in Rural Washington.

Although children from limited-resource families in rural areas are at great risk for nutrition-related chronic diseases, few hands-on programs have been implemented that simultaneously engage both parents and children and include local produce in a single program. This study reports on the development, implementation, and evaluation of Cooking with the Seasons for Health (CwS4H). Parent-child pairs participated in six sessions (two weekly sessions during each of three growing seasons), which included food tasting, a spotlight vegetable, interactive mini nutrition lesson, a child-focused cooking lesson, hands-on meal preparation, distribution of materials as family guides, and a take-home bag of fresh produce. Pre- and postprogram survey data were collected from 23 parents and 22 children. Children reported improvements in nutrition knowledge, vegetable preference, and self-efficacy in food preparation and cooking. Parents reported gains in nutrition knowledge, nutritional behaviors, vegetable preference, attitude toward food preparation/cooking, involvement of the child in food preparation/cooking, confidence in preparing vegetables, and the child's vegetable intake. Parents commented on the value children placed on food preparation and produce selection and how the program enhanced the parent-child relationship. By focusing CwS4H on a variety of fresh vegetables, this intervention helped to impact children's vegetable intake behaviors by engaging children in preparing and choosing the food they eat.

Phenotypic Diversity of Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) Based on Shorter Cooking Time and Canning Quality Traits

Cowpea is a leguminous crop rich in protein. Despite its nutritional quality, the crop is underutilized due to its prolonged cooking time requiring energy to make it palatable. This study investigated the adaptation capacity, cooking time and canning quality of a panel of 94 accessions of cowpea obtained from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture IITA, Ibadan and Rumukoro Market Port Harcourt Nigeria. Seeds were planted at the Department of Crop and Soil Science Research Farm and Allu Town, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The experimental design was randomized complete block design (RCBD) in three replicates for three seasons (early wet, late wet and dry season). Agronomic Parameters such as plant height, number of leaves, number of branches, leave length, leave width, and the flowering date was collected at two weekly intervals after weeks of planting. The cooking evaluation was carried out using a digital cooker (Tower Product), while canning quality was evaluated using a cost-effective sealer. Results obtained showed that cowpea adapted to the three seasons with optimal performance observed in the late wet season. The cooking results showed that TVU-2, TVU-8, TVU-9, TVU-13, TVU, 21, TVU29, TVU-36, TUV-38, iron white, akara bean, iron brown and honey bean had short cooking time while TVU-2, TVU-13, TVU-26, TVU-37, TVU-38, TVU-45, TVU-50 and TVU-51 had good canning quality. It is recommended that the selected accessions for better agronomic and culinary quality traits can be used for cowpea breeding programmes.

Evaluation of Cooking and Physico-Chemical Properties of Rice

Evaluation of Cooking and Physico-Chemical Properties of Rice

Evaluation of cooking, nutritional, and quality characteristics of fresh-cut potato slice pretreated with acetic acid.

Fresh-cut potato slices are very popular in the service of hot-pots. However, the gelatinized starch easily escaping from the potato cells during cooking causes the thickening of beef tallow or soup in the hot-pot. Thus, acetic acid is considered for solving the problem of potato slices. Besides, the nutritional and quality characteristics of potato slices are also evaluated in this study. Results show that 1.0%-1.5% (v/v) acetic acid treatment can decrease mass loss and starch digestion rate, and delay the degradation of ascorbic acid and deterioration of color and texture of potato slices. Such treatment also inhibits membrane oxidation and PPO activity, and increase the total phenolic accumulation of potato slice in 7-day storage. The cell wall integrity of the potato slice is strengthened by acetic acid treatment, providing a strategy for the improvement of the boiling resistance of potato slice, and endowing potato slice with the digesting resistance. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Acid pretreatment would cause the intensification of potato cell wall, which finally decrease the in vitro digestibility through decrease of leakage of gelatinized starch from potato cell and the contact between gelatinized starch and digesting enzyme. This observation proved that the integrity of cell structure in vegetable is important for their processing quality improvement (especially for their hardness improvement after heating or fermentation).