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RANKIN INLET/NUNAVUT
Ten delicious and nutritious recipes are being promoted in community cooking classes and local stores during a 10-month period across Nunavut.

The initiative was officially launched on Sept. 20, although a number of communities held their official launch on varying dates shortly thereafter.

In addition to learning how to prepare these meals in cooking classes, residents can pick up a different recipe in their local Northern, Coop and other retail stores each month, beginning last month and continuing until June.

There will also be a number of instore taste tests on priority nutritious foods, and participating stores will feature sale prices on featured ingredients.

The Department of Health and Social Services received input from community programs in each region to create the featured recipes.

The initiative is being funded through the introduction of Nutrition North Canada's community nutrition education initiative funds.

Regional public health nutritionist Brenna MacEachern of Rankin Inlet said the community of Baker Lake did much of the heavy lifting in submitting input for the initiative from the Kivalliq.

She said in Rankin, the Northern and Co-op stores will have displays out from the 20th to the 30th of each month promoting a different recipe.

"Our aim is to increase awareness on the importance of healthy eating through simple, easy-to-use recipes," said MacEachern.

"The Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative, local community health representatives and regional nutritionists also helped develop the recipes.

"They were tested and piloted by various cooking programs in Nunavut.

"The recipes are all economical and reasonably priced, considering our cost of food."

The recipes include all four food groups in the Nunavut Food Guide, featuring fish chowder, a stir fry, cheesy baked omelette, caribou stew and barley, quick baked char, meaty macaroni and cheese, beef and barley soup, easy pizza, chicken with rice and peas, and roast pork.

MacEachern said Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program co-ordinators in Baker helped test the recipes for ease and time of preparation.

She said they've included step-by-step pictures on how to prepare each meal.

"There's a good emphasis on country food and a video has also been prepared, in a number of languages, that shows each recipe being prepared.

"The people who took part in Baker really enjoyed the process and thought it was a lot of fun.

"They seemed really pleased with the results and the overall feedback was nice."

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