Creating an illustrated, budget‑friendly and nutritious cookbook that turns academic research and learning from a community cooking initiative into a widely accessible resource promoting healthy eating and offering easy, affordable recipes co‑created with partners and public contributors.
Why is the research needed?
Homemade meals tend to be healthier and more affordable than ready-made, processed foods, while learning to cook and eating nutritious meals supports children’s growth, concentration, and long-term health. However, barriers such as cost, limited skills, or perceptions of cooking as time-consuming and challenging discourage families from preparing meals at home. Given the cost-of-living crisis and its impact especially on low-income families, we want to create an accessible resource with easy, tried and tested recipes for budget-friendly healthy meals.
What are we doing?
We will be creating a cookbook of affordable recipes for busy parents, including those who may not feel confident in the kitchen, and it will provide clear information on nutrition, budgeting and using leftovers to help people make healthy, low‑cost meals with confidence. Our project builds on the success of Community Kitchen, a cooking initiative run by Stevenage Football Club Foundation and aimed at families with school-age children living in North Hertfordshire. We want to broaden the reach of the initiative’s message, that home cooking can be a fun family activity, and combine it with accessible information on which foods support good mental health. We will also work closely with families with children taking part in Community Kitchen sessions and public contributors to ensure our cookbook is a convenient practical resource with clear and straightforward guidance.
How are we working with communities, services and organisations?
We are collaborating closely with communities and local organisations – specifically partnering with Stevenage FC Foundation, Watford FC’s Community Sports and Education Trust, and The Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health – to co-create the cookbook. We have gathered recipe feedback from dietetics students based at the University of Hertfordshire and will also be incorporating input from Herts YPAG (Young People’s Advisory Group) as well as public contributors to ensure the resource truly meets families' needs. We are also working on securing endorsements like a foreword from Alex Revell, the Stevenage FC Manager.
What will the impact and benefits of this research be?
Our goal is to translate academic research and learnings from a community cooking initiative into a tangible, widely accessible resource promoting healthy eating habits and nutritional advice. We want to co-create an illustrated cookbook featuring tried and tested, budget-friendly recipes for easy and healthy main meals which will also offer advice on foods that support good mental health.
Our project focuses in particular on families with limited financial resources as they commonly face multiple barriers to healthy eating such as costs, time constraints or low confidence in food preparation skills. Community Kitchen sessions have proven to be a success, our goal is to widen the reach of the initiative and its ethos.
By promoting healthy eating habits and sharing advice on how particular foods benefit mental wellbeing, our project fits well with the long-term government agenda of health promotion and prevention of diet-related ill health.
What do we have planned for knowledge mobilisation and implementation?
We are collaborating with Health Innovation East on establishing knowledge mobilisation strategies: we plan to share the resource widely through community events, presentations to local stakeholders and authorities, and digital distribution via social media and newsletters, with a short survey for anyone downloading the cookbook to track impact and gather feedback.
Related papers, outputs and resources
Our project will produce key outputs including an illustrated cookbook available both online and in print, a scoping review on community cooking initiatives, and various presentations to share findings with stakeholders.
Who is involved?
- Project Lead: Emilia Tylenda, University of Hertfordshire
- Claire Thompson, University of Hertfordshire
- Angela Dickinson, University of Hertfordshire
- Keelan Fletcher, Stevenage FC Foundation
- Hannah Marsh, Watford FC’s Community Sports & Education Trust
- Charlotte Catignani, The William Templeton Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health
- Peter Templeton, The William Templeton Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health
Get in contact
Email Emilia Tylenda at e.tylenda@herts.ac.uk.
