The Team Behind the Pure Prairie Eating Plan

The 2016 Community Scholar Award winners, Catherine Chan and Rhonda Bell, know a thing or two about the benefits of enjoying a fresh and healthy meal.

As nutrition researchers with the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, they spent a lot of time putting together menus and recipes for people with diabetes. Soon, those people began to encourage them to share those resources more widely, and the Pure Prairie Eating Plan was born.

Although it was originally developed to manage Type 2 diabetes, the plan offers a way of eating that’s good for almost everyone. The menu is based on a combination of the Mediterranean Diet and Canada’s Food Guide, with lots of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, balanced proteins (including meat, poultry, fish, dairy and pulses), and plenty of fibre, but without a lot of processed foods.

“Research shows that when people prepare foods themselves, they tend to eat a healthier diet,” says Chan.

Unlike other plans, which focus on excluding foods, one of the key features of Pure Prairie is a focus on including foods people eat regularly. Chan explains, “We think that if people are going to stick with healthy eating for a lifetime, the foods in the menus have to be culturally relevant, not too expensive, readily available and great-tasting.”

That element of availability and cultural relevance was also a factor in choosing a lot of locally produced foods in the menu. But unlike trends such as the 100-Mile Diet, Chan and Bell’s plan leaves some flexibility for more exotic choices to complement local options, with foods like coconut milk and tuna still making the shopping list. “While we focused on prairie-grown foods, it's not exclusively that,” Chan says.

“We think that if people are going to stick with healthy eating for a lifetime, the foods in the menus have to be culturally relevant, not too expensive, readily available and great-tasting.”

Two years after the team self-published the book, it’s had quite an impact. With support from agricultural groups, promotions by the Alberta Diabetes Foundation and Alberta Diabetes Institute, and even a nod from the U of A’s Tim Caulfield in The Cure for Everything, the plan is getting noticed. Alberta Health Services has picked up the book for a pilot project creating a community kitchen for seniors, and Health Canada has started using it in programming for Aboriginal communities in Alberta. It’s also been picked up for cooking classes offered through Sunterra Market.

The widespread community adoption of the plan has been rewarding for the team. Chan says, “A lot of our research is community-oriented, which means the community comes to us and says ‘yes, we'd like to participate and give to the university.’” The publication of the plan deepened those connections. “After publishing PPEP we had the opportunity to interact with the community in a whole new way. We met a lot of great people who supported our work on a whole different level. The whole goal of our original research was to develop something practical, and PPEP seems to have achieved that.”

The Community Scholar Award recognizes an individual or team of academic staff members who not only excel in their scholarship, but also readily and frequently bring that scholarship into the community, showing how their work affects people’s lives.

“Cultures all around the world incorporate food and eating together into celebrations. We want to have special foods for these occasions. The trick is to pick favourite recipes with a healthy twist, like in this menu—a yummy barbecued steak on a big plate of greens, super-fresh seasonal vegetables like asparagus, and for the dessert a combination of fruit and whole grains that satisfies our desire for something sweet but still delivers something nutritious. The main trick is to not go overboard on portions—everything in moderation!”

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