Lee Health Solutions

From utensils to ingredients—a new teaching kitchen in Fort Myers is giving the community a hands-on experience to learn healthy ways to cook. “We’re going to learn how to cook, first of all, so we want to learn those essential cooking skills that kind of match our nutrition prescriptions and kind of learn different techniques to use in the kitchen, but also the nutrition behind it,” said Gina Skaronea, a clinical dietitian with Lee Health. Registered dietitians are providing a five-week class at Culinary Solutions at LeeSar to show people how to eat healthy at home. “We keep it basic, and we do teach them things, so they learn their knife skills like how to properly hold a knife. They also learn different topics about nutrition like sodium, healthy proteins, healthy carbohydrates, things that they need to make changes with their diet,” she said. Each week has a different nutritional focus which dietitians incorporate into a recipe. “Each week you learn something new so like this week we are talking about carbohydrates and healthy carbohydrates and how they still play a role in our bodies and how we still need them and the ones we need to stay away from,” said Skarone. With quick and easy recipes, participants can try different foods while learning about the many health benefits. “We try to prevent chronic disease at the end of the day and trying to teach them too that it doesn’t have to be expensive to eat healthily. Find those affordable options that can still work into a healthy diet,” she said. Teaching people how to be healthy here can lower their risk for chronic disease and keep them out of the hospital.