Why Miracle Black Bean Brownies Might Just Be Miraculous

Drive thirty miles along a pin straight road out of Jacksonville, Florida and you’ll run right into Macclenny, a sleepy southern town where everyone knows everyone (and your grand pappy, and probably his grand pappy too). Football games are like festivals and there’s a church on nearly every corner.

Some might classify what we, the Florida Department of Health in Baker County, are doing out here as rural healthcare in a stereotypical, sometimes stubborn, southern town. But I’m not convinced.

I started my position as a Health Educator with Florida’s Healthiest Weight Initiative, the goal being to make Florida the healthiest state in the nation. With every week that passed, and every southern delicatessen I tried, the more I realized how deeply cooking is ingrained in southern culture (and how good the food really is!). This understanding of southern culture within the county I’m serving is essential to assisting clients.

It’s not effective for me to tell people to stop eating fried pickles, chicken wings, or creamy green bean casserole. Nor can I tell them to go run the Gate River Run when they struggle to make time to walk a mile. It’s not effective for me to tell them what to do at all. Instead, they, like anyone else, respond best when I give them the tools and resources they need, and empower them to come up with personal goals on their own.

My 4-week nutrition education class is rooted in just that. We cover topics like eating healthy on a budget, how to lose or maintain a healthy weight, ways to modify favorite recipes to make them healthier and techniques to add physical activity to each day. But the best learning opportunities come from the participants themselves when they ask questions about topics they’re genuinely interested in.

In the past, topics ranged from general things like healthy snack ideas to exercises one can do at a desk. However, at times they’re pointed, with one woman requesting to find a specific black bean brownie recipe that was rumored to be a “miraculous creation you can eat as many as you want of.”

A little interested myself, I set out to find a recipe for this alternative brownie option. While I’m not sure I came up with just what she was looking for, I did find various recipes where healthier foods displaced less healthy options (like these chocolate brownie cupcakes made with black beans or this veggie fried rice made with cauliflower). Though these still might not be the healthiest options, they’re a step in the right direction.

The more baby steps we string together, the farther we can go towards achieving our health goals. When my class ends, all participants are left with is what they’ve learned. If what they’ve learned doesn’t apply to their lives or isn’t realistic, then their commitment to their health suffers. Therefore, in order to be an effective educator, I have to meet participants where they are and listen to their needs and interests, not just blindly throw standardized information at them.

I’ve come to realize that the information I think people need or want, might not always be what they could in fact benefit from. There are times when it pays to listen to clients and indulge their interests. As health educators, we can’t standardize our key concepts because at the end of the day, we’re still dealing with individuals who deserve to be treated as such. When we treat health personally, as it intrinsically is, we can create lasting change in the lives of people we serve.

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This blog post was written by NHC Florida AmeriCorps member Kelsey Quinn.

Kelsey serves at FDOH in Baker County as a Health Educator.