Table 2.

Key insights describing participants cooking practices after DPP

Supplementing salad dressings ‘Yeah, a lot of times I make dressing, or I’ll use the balsamic, or I’ll take it—the Caesar. But I cut it with rice wine vinegar, or I cut it—oh, I’m bringing stuff—or I’ll cut it with the apple cider vinegar.’ (49-year-old with some college education; did not participate in DPP cooking class) ‘I’m am a little caloric conscious. I use a teaspoonful of extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and lemon juice.’ (65-year-old with a college degree; participated in DPP cooking class)

Enhancing flavor without adding salt ‘They showed us in the DPP cooking where you can use different herbs to bring out the flavors in food, where you don’t have to saturate the food with a lot of salt, or cook it in a lot of oil just to make it taste good…how garlic just brings out the flavor in some foods. They showed us about fresh ginger that I wasn’t using.’ (62-year-old with a high school degree; participated in DPP cooking class) ‘I try to stay away from salt. I may use a little season salt at times, I like to use lemon juice also as a seasoning, to help with salt and taste, but that’s pretty much it. A lot of garlic powder, a lot of onion powder, sometimes parsley…’ (68-year-old with a college degree; did not participate in DPP cooking class)

Using healthier cooking techniques and utilizing appliances, particularly air-fryers ‘ But I bake my food a lot, now. Like I don’t-- how they-- my family would fry a lot of food, and like fry their chicken and fry-- I bake my food a lot. And I’m like air-fryer crazy. So if I’m going to fry food, fry chicken, I just throw my pork chops or my chicken or anything, I throw it into the air-fryer. I don’t necessarily want to fry. (49-year-old with some college education; did not participate in DPP cooking class) ‘ DPP has me looking at things more closely now to see what I should be using as opposed to what I was using. Say for instance, I was frying a lot, now I don’t. Or something like that. Yeah, I don’t fry a lot of foods anymore. The air fryer saved me from that, ‘cause it comes out just like it’s fried. I would put my… Instead of frying my chicken, now, I would stick it in the oven or I’ll put it on the grill. So, DPP did help me with that.’ (62-year-old woman with some college education; did not participate in DPP cooking class)

Reducing stress and time ‘It helps to put the ingredients out. It makes cooking a lot less stressful, if you have all the ingredients right there, and also you don’t have to say, ‘Oh, I don’t have this, and I gotta run to the store and get some eggs or some milk.’ (62-year-old with a high school degree; participated in DPP cooking class) ‘Really, just… I think that the cooking class made you think about having everything right there instead of… Because I’m a person, I’ll go to the refrigerator a million times. I’ll go to the cabinet and I’ll pull out, instead of having everything for your… Everything out that you need and really have it on hand. ‘Cause it was moving, they were moving fast. And it’s a great way to do it. Have everything that you need so you’re not searching for everything. You’re not looking to think that you need everything, and the cooking class made me think about everything down to the letter when it came to your ingredients.’ (54-year-old with a college degree; participated in DPP cooking class)

Focusing on fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables ‘ Vegetables, I like keeping my vegetables fresh. But if I don’t have it, I will have some cans up there, and I’ll open it…But if you don’t have it and you use canned, it’s okay, but just make sure you rinse everything off really good and then you start cooking it. But don’t just pour it in a pot in that water that’s in the can. Just make sure you take something and you rinse all of that off real good. And then you start cooking it.’…They [DPP] stressed to us how it was better if you can’t get fresh, do the frozen instead of the can.’ (67-year-old with some college education; did not participate in DPP cooking class)

Being mindful about cost and quality ‘ Food shopping is an adventure because I’m able now to look where I wasn’t before. I look at circulars. I pay attention to where, what is in my list of ingredients that I wanna get at a particular price. I used to just go buy. Now, I shop. So I go to maybe Harris Teeter. I might go to Safeway. I might go to Aldi’s. It just depends on the ingredients that I want at the cost that I want.’ (65-year-old with a college degree; participated in DPP cooking class)

Sticking to the perimeter ‘ And one of the things I learned in DPP was to buy from around the… From around the edges of the store, the perimeter of the store, and that’s what I try to do. I stay out of those aisles with the canned goods and things like that.’ (62-year-old with some college education; did not participate in DPP cooking class)