Omaha VA’s healthy teaching kitchen program

Amy Trombley is finding new health, community and culinary skills through the Healthy Teaching Kitchen program at Omaha VA.

An Army Veteran who deployed twice to Afghanistan, Trombley was initially drawn to the program out of curiosity about healthy eating. She has found so much more.

The Healthy Teaching Kitchen program provides Veterans with nutrition knowledge, cooking skills and guided practice to build confidence in cooking at home with healthy and minimally processed foods. The courses give Veterans a chance to learn about nutrition and practical food preparation under the guidance of VA clinical nutrition experts.

“Let your meals be your cure before your cure turns into your meals,” Trombley said, as she shared how the program has exposed her to various new foods, innovative culinary skills and a more balanced lifestyle—insights she wished she had gathered earlier.

A self-proclaimed “meat and potatoes girl” from North Dakota, she was hesitant about unfamiliar foods but now embraces more diverse flavors and ingredients. One of her favorite discoveries is tofu, which she had previously avoided but now loves preparing at home.

“The hands-on exposure to new ingredients and the chance to experiment with them has immensely transformed my life, as it has considerably altered my grocery shopping list,” she said. In addition to learning new skills like proper knife techniques, best practices for food safety and storage, and nutrient knowledge, Trombley says she now saves significant money at the grocery store by reducing food waste and eating out less—all thanks to the program.

Changes how Veterans perceive and interact with food

That’s music to Natalie Vankat’s ears. A dietitian who serves as the coordinator for Nebraska-Western Iowa VA’s Healthy Teaching Kitchen program, Vankat has seen first-hand how the VA program can assist Veterans, especially as the cost of food continues to rise.

“With the ever-growing increase in food costs, Veterans may struggle with affording certain types of foods or foods in general. Some depend on food banks, especially at the end of the month,” said Vankat, who offers a variety of healthy cooking classes at Omaha VA’s new state-of-the-art healthy teaching kitchen.

Saving significantly on groceries is a welcome relief to many. But the healthy teaching kitchen program offers more than just financial savings. It equips participants with valuable skills and nutrition knowledge, transforming how they perceive and interact with food.

“We offer over 44 different class topics and, included in each class, we educate patients on how to save money while shopping for groceries. We break it down even further in our ‘Cooking on a Budget’ and ‘Farmers Market Foods’ classes, offering many tips such as making a grocery list based on sale items, meal planning, using unit pricing, buying foods in bulk, freezing foods and purchasing produce that is in season,” she said.

The diverse curriculum also includes specialized classes, such as Diabetes Cooking, Heart Healthy Cooking, Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Food and Mood, Introduction to Cooking, Mediterranean Diet Cooking, Cooking for Kidney Health and Kitchen Gadget Cooking. All the classes are available to Veterans throughout VA Nebraska and Western-Iowa VA at no co-payment cost, and are accessible either in person or online via VA Video Connect.

Army Veteran Richard Hobbs is another Veteran who has seen significant and beneficial life changes since discovering the healthy teaching kitchen. “I’ve learned so much. It’s been a complete 180 on where my diet was,” he said.

Lowering his saturated fat and sodium intake and learning about several regimes, such as the Mediterranean diet, helped Hobbs lose 40 pounds in under a year. He is much more aware of what he puts into his body, and he now carefully reads labels when shopping, and he applies the lessons at home.

“It’s been a great experience, and I would highly recommend it to any Veteran,” he shared.