(WAND) - More than two million Illinois families received SNAP benefits in 2021, but not everyone knows how to use this money to buy - and prepare- healthy, nutritious food.
Now an education program, run out of the University of Illinois' Extension office, is working to change that.
"They were so excited to try a new and different cooking class," Angela Van Deven, a SNAP-Ed program participant, told WAND News.
Van Deven is a Fischer teacher and mom. Though she is not in the SNAP program, she and her girls have been taking cooking classes offered by the SNAP-Ed program.
"Definitely taught me a lot of things about nutrition and things like that, that I've neglected over the years. So its been really fun and my kids like making the different things with ingredients that we really haven't used much before," Van Deven explained.
Organizers said more than 59% of people in the SNAP-Ed program are increasing physical activity, eating more fruits and vegetables, and experimenting with healthy recipes.
"Its been so much fun. We've been learning different ways to cook old recipes, new recipes and we just love the ideas that the instructor brings to us," Van Deven added.
These classes, along with others about food budgeting and exercise, are preventing about 5,000 cases of obesity each year and reducing chronic disease.
"It helps people to build confidence and build their skills to feed their families healthy foods within their budget," Caitlin Kownacki, the Senior Program Lead Evaluation for the U of I Extension, told WAND News.
In a new study, Kownacki found the SNAP-Ed program, which costs $18-million to run, is saving taxpayers up to $135-million each year.
"In addition to the health and accessing healthy foods, the program also helps people to make sure they find enough food overall. So through the analysis that we did, we found that an estimated 570 cases of food insecurity were prevented as well," Kownacki explained.
SNAP-Ed also work with community partners to improve access to fresh, healthy food and physical activity. A third branch of the SNAP-Ed program includes media outreach like billboards, social media and TV ads.
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