Our Programs

Interested in partnering with us? Learn more about our current program offerings and other resources that you can share with parents in your community.

Program Delivery Options

Online

Online We currently offer online programs through Zoom where one of our staff members facilitates a highly interactive Zoom session. These sessions include cooking demonstrations and are designed to have parents and caregivers sharing their own experiences and expertise. These sessions can be designed to have your clients cooking along with our facilitators in their homes. For more information on our online programs, take a look at our Online Programming Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

In-person

We offer our educational sessions in-person at a partner organization’s site, as we do not have a central location where programming operates. We come to you – to your site’s conference room, to your local farmers’ market, to your staff kitchen – and we lead programs in your community, where partners and participants feel most comfortable. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, please reach out to Cooking Matters Colorado to learn about our current in-person programming offerings.

Our Programs

For parents and caregivers

Kids Say Yes to Fruits & Veggies

Discuss pros and cons of using different forms of fruits and vegetables, how to prepare meals and snacks that help kids eat more fruits and vegetables, and share ideas for helping kids enjoy more fruits and vegetables.

Making Recipes Work For You

Discuss how to substitute ingredients in recipes, practice using recipe frameworks, and share meal ideas that allow each family member to choose the toppings or ingredients that they enjoy.

No More Mealtime Madness

Introduction to the fundamentals of maintaining a basic pantry and discuss ways to involve kids in the meal planning to create more buy-in at mealtime.

Hack Your Snack

This session will share tips for saving time when buying and preparing healthy snacks, practice making healthy, homemade snacks, reading food labels, and identifying healthier choices when choosing prepackaged snacks, and practice comparing unit prices to save money.

The Family Kitchen

Prepare caregivers to work together with kids in their care to discuss safe, age-appropriate tasks for kids in the kitchen, practice preparing meals or snacks with child-friendly steps, and make healthy meals and snacks that everyone will enjoy.

Money-Saver Alert

Discuss how to use everything that you have (or have access to), practice using ‘hard to utilize’ ingredients in a variety of recipes, and discuss how to save foods that you can’t use right away and how to limit food waste with children while still introducing new foods.

Drink To Your Health

Discuss how sugary drinks impact health and describe how to make and taste a variety of healthy beverages at home.

Feeding in the First Year

Discuss infant feeding options including the safe introduction of solid foods, different food preparation methods that can be adapted for infants at different developmental stages, and practice preparing age-appropriate infant foods alongside recipes for the whole family.

Cooking Matters at the Store: Shopping on a Budget

Discuss how to buy fruits and vegetables on a budget, and practice comparing unit prices, reading food labels, and reading ingredient labels to find whole grains.

Our Programs

For Childcare Professionals

Creating Positive Mealtime Attitudes

Positive early childhood experiences surrounding food and the social environment are critical for shaping healthy eating behaviors later in life. In this training, childcare providers will recognize their role in establishing healthy attitudes and behaviors towards food among the children in their care.

Safe Cooking with Confidence

Childcare providers learn to safely prepare more scratch-cooked meals for the children in their care. This training includes an overview of food skills and safety as well as hands-on-meal preparation using Child and Adult Food Care Program (CACFP) approved recipes.

Choosing Healthy Foods for Kids

Childcare providers play a crucial role in ensuring that children in their care get the nutrients they need to grow and be healthy. In this training, providers learn to make smart choices about the foods they serve to kids through hands-on nutrition-based activities.

Meal Appeal

Early childhood is an ideal time to instill an appreciation for consuming a variety of healthy foods. In this training, providers will take part in hands-on activities that will show them various ways to encourage acceptance of healthy foods among children in their care.

Menu Management on a Budget

In this training, providers will discuss menu planning and shopping strategies they can use to make the most of their food dollars.

Partnering with Parents on Healthy Eating

Children are more likely to learn healthy eating behaviors when they receive similar messages at home, in school or child care, and in the community. This training provides tips and tools for communicating with parents and staff about best practices for feeding children and how to sustain those practices through setting healthy food policies.

Other Educational Materials

We are excited to share a compilation of resources that are educational, fun, and can also be used to share information about Cooking Matters’ free online programs. The resources include a variety of flyers/images with “bite-sized nuggets” of food skills education information. They can be printed and shared with clients, posted to social media, and used to get the word out about additional Cooking Matters learning opportunities.

Healthy Food Pantry Resource Guide

The new Cooking Matters Healthy Pantry Resource Guide is a compilation of resources intended to guide staff and volunteers at food banks and pantries who seek to introduce changes to facilitate and encourage healthy food choices. Our goal in creating this resource was to highlight the abundant tools, resources, and research available for food banks and pantries interested in making healthy choices more easily accessible.

Resources in this guide range from assessment tools for evaluating various components of a food bank or pantry, to how-to guides for implementing a client choice model. Whether a small, school-based food pantry, or a well-established regional food bank, this Resource Guide provides actionable tools and resources for encouraging a healthy food environment.

Legacy Six-week Courses

Our current COVID-19 protocols do not allow us to offer our six-week courses. We will add more information about this offering when it becomes available again. Thank you for your understanding.