By Julia Comino, VRG Intern

On Tuesday, June 14th, Marcy Schveibinz, a Vegetarian Resource Group volunteer and certified health and wellness coach, virtually led a class at the Christopher Place Employment Academy covering “Basic Nutrition”. Ms. Schveibinz  has been conducting weekly nutrition and vegan cooking classes for over three years . Christopher Place Employment Academy of Baltimore, a program hosted by the Catholic Charities, is a residential program that supports men who have experienced houselessness, incarceration, or addiction by providing education and recovery resources. The vegan nutrition classes Ms. Schveibinz instructs are one of the program’s efforts to build crucial life skills and knowledge in these men.

On that day, Ms. Schveibinz’s class consisted of a group of approximately a dozen  male students, all an array of different ages and dressed semi-formally yet giving off an air of casual intrigue, and myself, a VRG intern shadowing the call. Class began with introductions, which seemed almost unnecessary for Ms. Schveibinz who with the students shared a friendly familiarity. Soon, this small talk segued into a discussion of today’s course topic: “Basic Nutrition.”

Ms. Schveibinz utilized a Socratic teaching style, starting off the lesson by asking the students about what they knew about calories, and after the students shared their knowledge: that calories were what food was made up of, they were “bad,” or that they were something often limited in diets. Following this dialogue, Ms. Schveibinz informed the class the calories were simply a unit measuring the potential energy that food may provide. The lesson continued as Ms. Schveibinz discussed caloric density, the ratio of volume to calories of a food item. Soon, the lesson turned its focus on the differences in nutrition and caloric density of plant-based and animal-based products, with plant-based products tending to have lower caloric density and higher levels of vitamins. Specifically, Ms. Schveibinz’s explained that while some animal products have higher levels of protein, these products were a “package deal,” and often also contained higher levels of saturated fats.

As the class continued, Ms. Schveibinz taught about fats, oils, dietary fibers, and carbohydrates, and with each, she gave examples of plant-based sources of these nutrients. Often, when Ms. Schveibinz would ask the class to give examples of foods that had high contents of certain nutrients, the students would reply with plant-based products. At these points, Ms. Schveibinz would validate the student’s answer before explaining the nutritional value of that product. After, she would offer examples of plant-based products that contained similar nutrients with a higher nutritional value.

The students shared that the lesson on carbohydrates was most impactful. Ms. Schveibinz focused on the glycemic index, a scale that measures the carbohydrate content of a food item and its impact on blood sugar levels, fats, and sugars. She made a point to contextualize the topics by recognizing current diets and trends students may know these terms from. This allowed her to build upon students’ preexisting knowledge and even correct misinformation that diet cultures had promoted about these nutrients.

Finally, Ms. Schveibinz ended the class by discussing nutrient density, the ratio of nutrient content to calories, explaining that this measure offers great insight into the value of different food items. After the lesson, Ms. Schveibinz asked the students if they had any questions about anything they had learned that day and answered their inquiries before advertising that next week’s lesson would be a vegan cooking class, which was met with the students’ excitement. Although this class covered the basics it offered a beginning for these students to pursue further knowledge into nutrition and veganism proving that veganism is for anyone and everyone!

For information on The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, see: https://www.vrg.org/student/index.php

For more information on The Vegetarian Resource Group’s work with Christopher Place Classes, see:

https://www.vrg.org/blog/2020/02/04/cooking-vegan-chili-at-christopher-place/

https://www.vrg.org/blog/2019/06/27/vegan-cooking-class-at-christopher-place-employment-academy/