Mixing Ingredients & Methods: Cooking as Participatory Research With Youth

Semi-Structured Interviews With Design Probe

We conducted one-on-one interviews with youth and, to enhance comfort and engagement during interviews, a balloon artist created participants’ balloon “portraits” while each of them was being interviewed (Figure 1). Each balloon portrait reflected how youth wanted to be represented and often included their favorite foods. In prior studies, arts-based objects used to prompt conversation and reflection have been described as design probes (Gaver et al., 1999; Pater et al., 2025). Design probes provided a playful medium that encouraged youth to articulate aspects of their identity, self-image, and personal preferences. The use of balloon portraits also created a relaxed atmosphere and allowed youth to look at something rather than maintaining eye contact while answering questions, which supported participants’ ability to express themselves openly.OPEN IN VIEWER

The interviews were conducted in a familiar setting, in the presence of a GGC leader. The leader was familiar with GGC youth and had in-depth knowledge of our research project. As such, they were able to ask effective probing questions that elicited greater detail from youth’s initial responses. To guide conversations, we used an interview guide that asked about eating habits at school and at home, understandings of healthy eating, and broader perspectives on health (Supplemental File). Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim using Otter.ai, and managed in NVivo 12 (QSR International).

Group Cooking Sessions

We collaboratively planned four group cooking sessions with youth who chose to make nachos and cookies. Cooking sessions were held in the kitchen of the school, where regular weekly GGC meetings took place, and included between 11 and 15 participants. They worked in smaller groups of three to four participants and made the same recipe using the four ovens and sinks available in the school kitchen. Each session was facilitated by two research team members and supported by two GGC leaders who attentively observed interactions between participants while they handled ingredients and followed recipes. While nachos and cookies baked in the oven, researchers asked open-ended questions to the group (e.g., What are your favorite foods? What do you like about them? What’s your favorite kind of cookie? Where do you usually eat cookies?).

Research team members and one GGC leader independently wrote detailed field notes during and after the cooking sessions that captured observations, interactions, and informal conversations relevant to our research questions. As an example, research team members commonly recorded brief notes regarding participants’ conversations as they followed the recipes, which were later expanded into more detailed field notes that were incorporated into data analysis. Having a GGC leader take notes was particularly helpful because they knew youth better than the researchers and were able to gather additional details and nuances. All these notes were key in the data analysis process and shaped the development, refinement and description of our themes.

Data Analysis and Rigor

We conducted reflexive thematic analysis (RTA), a flexible, interpretive approach to qualitative analysis that supports the identification of meaningful patterns while emphasizing the researcher’s role in knowledge production (Byrne, 2022). Braun and Clarke (2019) distinguish RTA from other forms of thematic analysis because in RTA, codes and themes are understood as interpretive products shaped by the data, theoretical assumptions, and the researcher’s analytic resources (Braun and Clarke, 2019, 2020). Two members of the research team independently generated themes that captured and summarized sections of interview and observation data, which formed their initial codebooks. At this stage, all researchers who conducted observations met in person for a half-day meeting to review codebooks and reach consensus on theme names.

Analysis was iterative, involving interview transcripts, observation notes that captured informal conversations during cooking sessions, and field notes, which were examined in relation to one another rather than as separate data streams. RTA was applied across all data sources, enabling meaningful integration of data from interviews and cooking sessions. Initial coding was conducted inductively across all data sources, with particular attention to how embodied interactions and group dynamics observed during cooking sessions complimented patterns identified in verbal accounts. As such, field notes and observations were used to contextualize emerging interpretations derived from interview data.

As we recognized alignment between emergent themes and the components of Vidgen and Gallegos’ food literacy framework (2014), we then applied a deductive approach to review, define, and name the final themes. Importantly, this framework was introduced after initial theme development and research team discussions to support the final interpretation of themes, rather than to guide the initial coding process. Other food literacy frameworks and attributes were considered (Perry et al., 2017); however, Vidgen and Gallegos’s (2014) framework provided the strongest fit with the themes generated through our inductive analysis. The combination of QD, RTA and a deductive framework was intentional, allowing us to explore an open-ended research question in a novel context while staying close to participants’ experiences and situating findings within an established conceptual model.

Rigor was supported through multiple verification strategies (Morse et al., 2002). Data collection and analysis occurred concurrently, and we used triangulation by examining interview data alongside observation notes. Reflexivity was an ongoing component of the process; the research team regularly reflected on how our professional roles (e.g., dietitians, educators) and identities as parents and non-parents shaped interactions with participants and interpretations of the data. In addition, through reflexivity, researchers developed rich notes from cooking sessions, noting practical lessons we learned after each cooking session (e.g., complexity of tasks, time it took youth to measure ingredients), deepening our awareness of youth food-related behaviours and social dynamics. As data analysis unfolded, notes and reflections were weaved into four main themes from the data: participating in family routines, navigating school and peer contexts, exploring diverse resources, and managing themselves (Ferdinands et al., in press).

This paper does not aim to present empirical findings in detail, as these are reported elsewhere (Ferdinands et al., in press); rather, it offers a methodological reflection on cooking as a method of inquiry with youth, using our study as an illustrative example. Although public health and health promotion practitioners have extensive experience engaging youth through cooking-based interventions (Moffat et al., 2022), researchers and policy makers have been slower to leverage cooking as a research method. In our study, cooking sessions served three interrelated functions: (1) they created an optimal setting for qualitative data collection; (2) they generated meaningful opportunities for youth participatory research; and (3) they supported food literacy development within a rich, experiential learning environment. Although these functions were distinguishable, they often overlapped in practice. For example, the cooking sessions not only generated data but also created opportunities for food literacy development and participatory engagement, meaning that the research process itself may have shaped participants’ experiences and reflections around food. Rather than viewing this as a limitation, we understand such interaction as consistent with participatory approaches, where learning, reflection, and data generation are often intertwined. In the section that follows, we elaborate on each of these functions and illustrate how cooking operated as both a research method and a learning space for youth.

A Prime Setting for Qualitative Data Collection

Pater et al. (2025) emphasize the value of combining innovative participatory methods with more traditional approaches in food research with children, as this allows researchers to capitalize on the strengths of each. In our study, interviews with youth represented the more traditional method of data collection and accounted for much of the qualitative dataset. However, we encountered resistance to engagement among some participants and their interviews yielded brief, socially desirable responses that lacked depth (Moffat et al., 2022). In a previous study with youth in a rural setting, we were faced with similar interview scenarios and included cooking to foster youth engagement (Ferdinands et al., 2025).

Cooking sessions helped address these limitations by enriching interview accounts with spontaneous comments, embodied actions, and peer interactions observed while preparing nachos and cookies. For example, during interviews, several youth briefly described baking practices with family members, most commonly with mothers and grandmothers. However, it was during the cooking sessions that their experiential knowledge and familiarity with food preparation became more visible through subtle practices, such as sifting flour before adding it to the recipe or using a butter knife to level sugar in a measuring cup. Observing these actions alongside interview accounts strengthened our interpretation of family routines as important contexts for the development of food literacy, moving this theme beyond verbal description alone. Cooking sessions also generated informal discussions that deepened interpretation. For instance, while preparing cookies, youth discussed the high sugar and fat content of cookies and their low nutritional value, while simultaneously expressing that this knowledge would not influence whether they chose to eat them. These exchanges provided insight into how youth negotiated tensions between what they knew about nutrition and how they managed food choices within everyday eating practices.

Indeed, cooking offers a layered methodological space where multiple forms of inquiry unfold simultaneously. As Svejenova (2015) argues, the question “What’s cooking?” carries an inherent “bisociation,” a meeting of two mental planes that allows an activity to be understood both literally and symbolically. In our work with youth, this bisociation was evident: one plane was the act of cooking itself, central to food literacy development and youth participation; the other was the unfolding of the research process through the act of cooking. To support this dual process, researchers must play fluid and diverse roles, shifting among facilitator, participant-observer, technical assistant, and reflexive listener. This flexibility generates serendipitous opportunities for observation and meaning making.

Cooking provided a natural, low-pressure context for conversation, echoing Brady’s (2011) emphasis on food preparation as a site of identity formation, learning, and storytelling. As youth mixed ingredients, negotiated oven space, or waited for nachos and cookies to bake, conversations emerged organically, often more freely than in more structured forms of individual and group interviews. As an example, Olivia (participant pseudonym) shared with one of the researchers that her sister and dad are good bakers and that she often bakes at home with them. She also described her favorite cookie flavor and other recipes she enjoyed at home. Cooking was particularly well-suited to exploring food literacy because it enabled youth to simultaneously talk about, demonstrate, and enact food knowledge and practices, making visible embodied knowledge, family influence, peer interaction, and everyday decision-making.

Overall, the cooking environment amplified youth’s comfort with data collection, as well as fostered their expressiveness and willingness to share personal experiences with food. Ideally, we would have liked to have more time and structure for group discussions during cooking sessions. However, we quickly realized that the cooking activities were going to take up the entire time we had with participants and, as a result, required us to remain flexible and adopt a more informal approach to discussion. It is worth noting that participants spanned a wide age range: ages 9-15. As such, cooking sessions were divided into two groups based on their ages. A noticeable contrast was observed between younger (ages 9–11) and older (ages 12–15) participants in terms of their levels of independence and abilities to complete cooking tasks. For instance, Mya, a participant in the older group, demonstrated confidence with kitchen tools and showed peers how to measure ingredients. This greater level of independence amongst the older participants contributed to a calmer and more organized cooking session.

Brady’s (2011) concept of cooking as inquiry suggests that food-making “animates the already well-established link between food and identity, and thereby makes accessible to inquiry the symbolic, social, historical, and cultural aspects of food as they are incorporated in bodily performances” (p. 324). Our findings reflected this process vividly, as the kitchen became a methodological site where youth’s food practices, interactions, and narratives emerged in ways that traditional interviews alone could not elicit. In doing so, cooking as inquiry also challenged dominant ways of knowing within nutrition research with youth, particularly deficit-oriented representations of youth as passive or disengaged consumers. Instead, youth took the role of active participants and decision makers, exercising agency through both talk and action.

As such, cooking functioned not merely as a site of observation but as a participatory space that foregrounded youth agency and engagement (Moffat et al., 2022). A key factor facilitating the level of youth participation achieved in this study was the involvement and commitment of GGC as an organization. The GGC leaders we worked with were deeply committed to nutrition and youth wellbeing. Without their support, the study, including the cooking sessions, would likely have been far more researcher-driven.

Meaningful Opportunities for Youth Participatory Research

Between February and April 2025, group cooking sessions were co-planned with youth as a deliberate participatory strategy. Youth selected not only the recipes to be prepared but also the small groups they would work in and the final presentation of their dishes, including toppings for nachos and the shape and size of cookies. While the cookie recipe was prepared in a social manner, as they decided as a group on which types of chocolate chips to use and the sizes and shapes of their cookies, the nacho recipe allowed them to express their individualities in the way they each decided how to assemble their tray. By making decisions about recipes, task organization, and food preparation, youth were provided with accessible entry points for meaningful decision-making, aligning with participatory principles that recognize young people’s agency, preferences, and experiential expertise. This approach also created opportunities for intergenerational dialogue between youth and researchers, helping to address and soften entrenched power imbalances within the research process (Williams et al., 2025). For example, during the cookie baking session, youth discussed with their peers and researchers whether they were allowed to eat raw cookie dough at home, as they scraped the bowls with their fingers or spatulas and commonly ate raw dough. Some described awareness of food safety and how their parents cautioned them not to eat raw dough or batter of any kind; while two of them shared their families’ distrust in the “government” and inclination to do what they wanted in those situations.

Cooking sessions disrupted traditional hierarchical researcher–participant relationships. Youth moved freely around the kitchen, negotiated their roles with peers, and problem-solved in their small groups. These moments provided opportunities for meaningful participation that surpassed verbal contributions alone. Through embodied action, sensory engagement, and shared accomplishment, participants influenced the direction, rhythm, and focus of each session. As a result, cooking became an invaluable method for fostering higher levels of youth involvement while ensuring that data collection was grounded in their interests and lived experiences (Velásquez et al., 2022). One noteworthy aspect of research with higher levels of youth participation is that this way of conducting the research functions as a motivation for youth to continuously participate (Williams et al., 2025). In addition, youth participatory research commonly becomes an intervention that offers immediate benefits to participants (e.g., knowledge, skills, experience) beyond the possibility of helping to improve the realities and environments for future generations (Williams et al., 2025).

Within youth food literacy research, cooking embedded within participatory approaches offers a particularly powerful means of engaging youth in dialogue and action around food. By centering food-based practices, these approaches create space for critical food literacy that attends not only to individual skills and knowledges, but also to the sociopolitical contexts and food systems shaping young people’s everyday experiences (Moffat et al., 2022). In this way, cooking as inquiry functions as both a methodological and pedagogical practice, expanding how food literacy is explored, enacted, and understood within qualitative research with youth.

Using the Lansdown–UNICEF conceptual framework introduced earlier, the level of participation in this study is best understood as primarily consultative with collaborative elements. Youth were actively involved in shaping key aspects of data generation, such as selecting recipes, organizing group work, and determining how food was prepared and presented. Although this design moved beyond treating youth solely as study participants, the overall study design, analytic framework, and final interpretation remained primarily researcher-led. A key collaborative dimension was the involvement of a GGC leader, who contributed to the design of the cooking sessions and participated in data generation and interpretation, drawing on her established relationships with youth and contextual knowledge of meaningful engagement. This relational approach enabled youth perspectives to be meaningfully centred within the research process, while remaining responsive to the practical and ethical considerations of working within an existing community program. As such, participation in this study was bounded but intentional, with a view to moving toward higher levels of youth participation as our partnership with GGC matures and strengthens over time and across future studies.

A Rich Learning Environment for Food Literacy Development

Although our cooking sessions were designed primarily to create an environment for exploring youth’s food literacy by answering the research question, “How do youth who participate in GGC develop food literacy?”, they extended beyond this purpose and became a way youth developed food literacy. Through hands-on practice, youth were able to engage with ingredients, experiment with kitchen tools, and apply foundational skills such as measuring, slicing, and recipe sequencing steps.

While each session created an optimal setting for participant observation and informal group discussion that deeply enriched data collected through interviews, it also represented an experiential learning opportunity. One of the findings from our research was that group cooking sessions served as dynamic learning environments that supported the development of multiple components of food literacy, as evidenced by youths’ responses to interview questions related to how they learned about foods (Ferdinands et al., in press). Utter et al. (2017) described that experiential cooking programming “may provide important opportunities for young people to develop new skills, shape how they see themselves, and socialize with peers and adults in enjoyable ways” (p. 576). In our cooking sessions, individual participants interacted and influenced each other while retaining their ability to shape their choices and change their environments.

Recent studies demonstrate that participatory food-making enhances children’s learning, engagement and motivation to participate in research (Velásquez et al., 2022; Williams et al., 2025). For example, Velásquez and colleagues (2022) found that school-aged children in an after-school program in Uruguay enthusiastically co-developed a healthy dairy alternative that was both familiar and hedonic, showcasing the potential of involving children in recipe development. Similar to their findings, our participants demonstrated curiosity, experimentation, and self-confidence, which are important behaviours for the development of food literacy skills that can be successfully fostered through cooking as a method of inquiry. Furthermore, such participatory approaches also address calls from youth our group previously interviewed for other research projects who have asked for more opportunities to cook in the kitchen and learn about food (Ferdinands et al., 2025).

When collaborating with youth in research, as well as with parents or guardians who provide consent, it is valuable to recognize that participating in research involving cooking can contribute to youth’s food literacy development. Highlighting this potential benefit can both encourage youth engagement and broaden the overall impact of projects that use cooking as a method of inquiry. By supporting skill-building alongside data collection, this approach to research offers a meaningful return to participants while enriching the research process itself.

Navigating Group Dynamics

Researchers cannot predict group dynamics beforehand and need strategies to manage undesirable interactions among youth. In one of our cooking sessions, we noted one participant’s discomfort over working with a certain group of youth and had to act quickly and adjust groups without drawing attention to that participant. Additionally, while youth’s enthusiasm is overall a positive outcome of cooking as inquiry, their high energy and excitement can also be disruptive and extend the time cooking activities take, leaving less time for group discussions. In a cooking session, like other group-based qualitative methods (e.g., focus groups), one or two participants may dominate the activities and organic discussions. Therefore, incorporating one-on-one methods such as interviews to complement cooking sessions is equally important.

Furthermore, one key strategy to address potential challenges in cooking sessions, commonly noted in other participatory approaches (Quintanilha et al., 2015; Quintanilha & Mayan, 2022), is to involve a community member who knows the participants and understands their group dynamics. In our case, having GGC facilitators present during the cooking sessions helped us form small groups, engage less-involved participants, and expedite kitchen clean-up so that we could complete all recipe steps and data collection activities within the available time. The facilitators’ familiarity with participants also allowed them to anticipate how long activities would take, monitor group energy, and provide gentle direction when youth became distracted or when tasks needed to be completed within specific timeframes. Youth largely self-organized during cooking activities rather than being assigned specific roles. They selected tasks based on their interests and moved between activities as needed, creating opportunities for participation through food preparation, observation of peers, informal conversation, and one-on-one interactions with facilitators and researchers. This flexibility seemed to support engagement among youth with different communication styles and levels of confidence.

The presence of trusted facilitators also helped balance participant autonomy with safety. While leaders remained available to assist with kitchen equipment and food preparation tasks, youth were encouraged to complete activities independently and seek assistance when needed. In settings where trusted community facilitators are not available, researchers may need to invest additional time in relationship-building before implementing cooking sessions, as trust and familiarity appeared to be important conditions supporting both participation and data generation in this study.

Benefits of Multiple, Complementary Methods

We agree with Pater et al. (2025) that participatory research with youth benefits from combining innovative and traditional methods, as this approach capitalizes on the strengths of each. Moreover, using multiple methods enhances the richness of the results. This was evident in our study, where we were able to balance the challenges of one method (e.g., semi-structured interviews) with insights generated through cooking sessions and vice versa. While some participants were more reserved and offered fewer details during interviews, others animatedly recounted family traditions and shared stories about their family routines and food preferences. In contrast, some participants quietly accomplished tasks in the kitchen by following recipe steps while others gave their opinions and asserted their preferences during cooking sessions and informal group discussions.

Similarly, prior qualitative research illustrates how combining complementary forms of data generation can deepen understanding of youth food practices and social relationships. Black et al. (2022), for example, examined school norms and peer relationships around school lunches using ethnographic observation, with detailed fieldnotes supplemented by photographs taken during lunch periods to enrich contextual understanding. Through close observation of peer interactions in three Canadian schools implementing a new district lunch program, the authors noted that students “marked out their identities vis-à-vis food by declaring food they liked and disliked” (Black et al., 2022, p. 286).

Resource-Related Constraints

Cooking can be resource intensive and shaped by several practical constraints that warrant consideration. Time is a primary limitation as cooking sessions require sufficient time not only for food preparation and cooking, but also for informal conversations to emerge organically. When time is constrained, opportunities for deeper interaction and reflection may be reduced. Access to an appropriate kitchen space is another key aspect that researchers need to consider when planning research activities. Cooking is most effective when conducted in environments where youth feel comfortable and familiar. In this study, access to facilities where GGC programming takes place enabled the use of a well-equipped kitchen and supported a sense of ease among participants. In contrast, in our prior research, cooking took place around a long table in a non-kitchen setting, requiring researchers to bring in all necessary equipment. This significantly limited what could be prepared and constrained the types of cooking activities that were feasible (Ferdinands et al., 2025).

Human resources also shape the quality of data generated through cooking sessions. Multiple researchers are better positioned to attend to the many conversations that unfold simultaneously during cooking, capturing diverse interactions and moments of meaning-making. If only one researcher is present, it becomes challenging to listen in on parallel discussions while also attending to safety, logistics, and facilitation. Additionally, food allergies and intolerances can impose important constraints on menu selection and food preparation. While careful planning is necessary for all participants’ safety and inclusion, making dietary accommodations can limit recipe options, increase cost of ingredients and preparation demands.

Together, these resource-related constraints underscore the importance of pre-planning cooking sessions within the budget, time, and resources of studies that plan to use this qualitative research method with youth. Nevertheless, the conditions required for cooking as inquiry are highly context-dependent and should be determined collaboratively with community partners and youth. While access to a fully equipped kitchen and multiple researchers on site may enhance opportunities for interactions and observation, these conditions are not essential if appropriate adjustments are made to the research methods, including the cooking sessions. Indeed, we have successfully adapted cooking activities to diverse environments and used simplified food preparation activities (e.g., air fryer-based recipes) with fewer facilitators in another study (Ferdinands et al., 2025). Across contexts, the most essential conditions appear to be the presence of trusted relationships with community partners, adequate time for interactions to unfold, and food preparation activities that are feasible and interesting to participants.