Winter Bulletin 2006-07 Vol. 22, No.4

Introduction
Nutrition Education in Mexico
New Beginnings for Plenty Belize
A GATE Volunteer Tells Her Story
Katrina Relief: The Beat Goes On

After installing a new Ultra Violet water filter, making a trial run with the new milk press, and training new staff to make the high protein pinole, my latest visit to the Centro Indigena Huichol Soy Alegre Soy Dairy concentrated on nutrition and cooking classes. Ten classes were completed, including four at the hospital in Huejuquilla, two at the Huichol Center School, one at a local bakery for new products with soy, and three classes near Fresnillo, Zacatecas, for a total of about 225 students.

The people in social services that we work with in the hospital in Huejuquilla let us know that using what we shared with them last time in recipes and information, they taught 34 more classes with 1304 participants. They referred to this as the seeds that were planted and harvested. Some of the classes we presented this time focused on making soymilk from soybeans, and we handed out kilo bags of soybeans at the end of each class. Other classes focused on cooking with TVP (Texturized Vegetable Protein) as an alternative protein, which is readily available in Mexico and inexpensive. All the classes covered nutrition basics using our educational nutrition charts. We handed out booklets in each class with instructions and recipes including color photos illustrating the steps in producing each recipe.

Some of my most enthusiastic students were the children in the Huichol Center School. Even the boys showed enthusiasm and some cooking skills, demonstrating that the times are changing even in the Sierra Madre. All of them loved cooking and eating something they had made themselves, and all thought they could do it at home as well.

Berta (Estreberta Carrillo Santillo) filled me in on the events of her and Imelda's (Imelda Cruz de la Rosa) trip to the meetings and workshops Plenty arranged for soy technicians in Nicaragua and Guatemala this past June (see Plenty Bulletin, Summer 2006). They were both very much inspired by the soy operations and the other technicians they met in those places and are ready to put what they learned into practice.