October 23, 2020 | Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon, Mexico | Keila Urbano and IAD News Staff

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North Mexico, together with Montemorelos University, has recently launched a healthy cooking program on social media that has drawn attention from many countries around the world.

Coined as “Healthy Kitchen”, the program includes recipes based on the church’s banner initiative “I Want to Live Healthy” foods which include ingredients that are of vegetable origin.

Hosts Minerva Gonzalez (left) and Juliaemy Heilbron (right) demonstrate a dish during an episode of the “Healthy Kitchen” program which was launched by the church in North Mexico and Montemorelos University on Oct. 5, 2020. The 15-episode program provide simple healthy recipes with a spiritual emphasis as part of  the “I Want to Live Healthy” comprehensive initiative carried out throughout Inter-America. [Photo: North Mexican Union]
“Our main objective with programs like this is to motivate people to live with physical, mental, social, and spiritual health,” said Dr. Roel Cea, health ministries director for the church in North Mexico and director of Montemorelos University’s Health Promoter University program.  The cooking program is part of a comprehensive evangelism plan. It is intended for church members to share with friends and neighbors in order to motivate them to pursue a healthy lifestyle, he said.

The cooking series has 15 episodes and each episode is 14 minutes long. In every episode a recipe is introduced which uses ingredients easily found in Mexico and in most of the Americas, and presented with a connection to spiritual health, organizers said. The online program began on Oct. 5 through the church’s Facebook and YouTube channels, and the “I Want to Live Healthy” webpage found at quierovivirsano.org

After the first three episodes were aired the “I Want to Live Healthy” Youtube Channel had nearly 10,000 views, organizers said.

Many online viewers from around the world expressed their gratitude for the cooking program.

Recipes featured in the “Healthy Kitchen” programs include food groups included in the “I Want to Live Healthy” initiative. [Photo: quierovivirsano.org]
“Greetings from Costa Rica. I am so happy to follow your recipes,” commented Wendy Picado. “I have really liked them. I am a Seventh-day Adventist but I don’t know much about healthy cooking so I’m now learning.”

Marcela Viera of Barcelona, Spain, commented: “The program will be of great benefit to the entire family… I’m so very happy.”

For Blanca Estela C., the recipes were nutritious, affordable and easy to prepare.

Juliaemy Heilbron, director of the I Want to Live Healthy Community Center and one of the presenters of the Healthy Kitchen show, said the program has been a wonderful experience not only learning how to prepare the dish but learning about the nutritional content of each ingredient used.  “I have learned to appreciate the most common nutrients that are good for us in each recipe and be thankful to God for all these nutrients He has provided for our integral health,”she said.

Program hosts cook a special recipe while being filmed during one of 15 episodes of the series. The online program has been available on Facebook, YoutTube and the “I Want to Live Healthy” website. [Photo: North Mexican Union]
At the end of the cooking series, church leaders in North Mexico will follow through with a special family life series and a bible study program coined as “Let’s Look in the Bible,” in mid-November.

To view all 15 Healthy Kitchen episodes and to download recipes, visit quierovivirsano.org