The biweekly Farmers Market at the ASU Tempe campus returned Tuesday to provide healthy, alternative dining options and host a healthy-eating research campaign theater performance.
The Cooking Show con Karimi and Comrades, a touring comedy and cooking show that educates communities on healthy eating lifestyles, performed the sketch.
Mero Cocinero Karimi, host of the cooking show, said he and his group came to ASU to encourage people to eat healthy.
“We want people to reinvest in their community and reinvest in their health so when we give them ideas, they go out and execute those ideas,” Karimi said.
Though the Farmers Market is not officially affiliated with the project, it was chosen for its accessibility to healthy food that people could utilize after watching the performance.
The show was brought to the farmers market by a group of University interdisciplinary researchers working on a project called Diabetes and Democracy in South Phoenix: Performance, Place and the Cultural Politics of Food.
The project examines the efficiency of performance to the growing population of those living with Type 2 diabetes by teaching healthy eating habits through theater performance and workshops.
The team of four researchers won a 2011 Seed Grant of $12,000, which is awarded annually to sponsor creative research projects. The grant was sponsored jointly by the Institute for Humanities Research and the Herberger Institute Research Center.
Karimi teaches “The Plate Method,” a diet that incorporates meals made up of 50 percent vegetables, 25 percent starch and 25 percent protein.
“In addition, we are saying to use your own culture, use your own traditions and use your own rituals to look at and help you make food choices,” he said.
As an example, the group used cactus as an ingredient in the free tacos they were serving because the plant is local to Arizona, Karimi said.
There are many different health education campaigns with curriculums trying to teach people how to eat healthier, said Seline Szkupinsky-Quiroga, faculty associate with the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion. She helped co-write the winning grant proposal.
Szkupinsky-Quiroga said many of these campaigns focused on what not to eat, rather than what should be added to a nutritional diet.
“We decided to take a different path using both performance and communicating the message that you have … the resources in order to eat more healthy,” she said.
Associate professor at the School of Theatre and Film Tamara Underiner also helped to write the grant to bring the initiative to Arizona.
Underiner said the grant provides for a three week-long timeframe to see if educational theater performances could change people’s attitudes about healthy eating.
“So the idea is that (people) will learn how to do these healthy cookings and go back to their community and family and friends to teach them and help spread the word,” Underiner said.
Szkupinsky-Quiroga said she knew Karimi from her time spent in San Francisco as a graduate student.
“I thought that performance art was a good way to have an effect on people’s healthy behavior,” Szkupinsky-Quiroga said.
All three nutrition enthusiasts recommended tacos as an affordable, healthy option for on-the-go students.
Beans, lettuce and tomatoes can together provide an easy meal, Karimi said.
“Any time you can learn to prepare yourself something really delicious and healthy it’s good for everybody,” he said.
Reach the reporter at kmmandev@asu.edu
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