Randy LaBauve

Judy Myhand has been a popular nutrition instructor in the LSU College of Agriculture’s School of Nutrition and Food Science for more than a quarter of a century. She refers to her students as “my little army” and has trained them with the science of good nutrition to combat enemies of good health like poor diet and health fads.

Her interconnected work experiences would eventually culminate into her dream job — teaching and mentoring college students in good nutrition so they could, in turn, lead others to good health.

“She’s absolutely my mentor,” said former student Katie Moses, a consultant for school food services with the Louisiana Department of Education. “My work now is helping the helpers, which is what Ms. Myhand does.”

Myhand’s mission for good nutrition started at a young age. A Hungarian equestrian soldier taught her to ride horses but also gave her advice about improving her diet to become a better rider.

“He said you need to make sure you eat fresh fruits and vegetables because people in the United States don’t eat well,” Myhand remembered.

Her aunt in Michigan had shown her how to cook healthy, delicious meals using whole grains. Aunt Gaga also introduced her to a popular nutrition book that fascinated and motivated Myhand.

“Then I found out half of it (the book) was quackery,” Myhand said. “I trusted it because Aunt Gaga said it was good.”

Myhand started in journalism at LSU but left the program to work as a lab technician for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she learned about the importance of research-based information. She returned to LSU and earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in nutrition.

The first nutrition class she took met in a vintage 1959 kitchen lab in the LSU Home Economics Building (now named the Human Ecology Building). She wrote in a paper for that class: “Nutrition attracts quackery in the form of miracle diets and cures. I can combat the misinformation by providing reliable research.”

Myhand held various jobs after graduation — first, as a salesperson for diabetes equipment and diabetes educator, then as a junior high science and social studies teacher. She also did work with pharmaceutical sales and with an eating disorders treatment program.

But none was the dream job she had summarized in her class paper: “I would like to teach on the college level, but I’m also interested in community educational work.”

She saw a newspaper ad from LSU for a nutrition instructor and was confident the job was meant for her. Myhand told a search committee member, “I’m here. You don’t have to look any further.”

Now, she has been teaching for almost three decades — in the same food lab where she took her first food science class. Nutrition students take three courses from Myhand: Food Theory and Skills, Life Cycle Nutrition, and Food and Culture. She mingles her research-based nutrition education with a passionate delivery style that Myhad honed when she was a pom-pom girl for the LSU basketball team when the iconic Pete Maravich starred on the court,

“I’m serious about getting the information across, but I saw myself as an entertainer,” she said. “I wanted to get them to engage with the information so they could apply what they learned to their own lives.”

Students cooked meals, but Myhand also taught them the scientific reactions occurring in the ingredients and why that was important to the recipe. The classes were challenging, but students were motivated to do the work, according to Moses.

“She is just so passionate about sharing not only nutrition education, but her passion for food, making meals, having meals together and the fellowship around it,” said former student Shelby Vince about Myhand’s most popular class, Food Theory and Skills. “It just radiates from her.”

Vince saved recipes from the class and still makes some of them today.

“What I tell them from the beginning is, you will leave this class knowing how to cook just about anything,” Myhand said. “I reassured them I’m not going to grade you on whether it tastes good or not, but you have to work together.”

Myhand’s students are now in successful careers at schools, hospitals, government agencies and sports teams. Many of them have acquired her nutritional zeal while sharing some of her interests.

Vince recently began her career and works with diabetes patients at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge.

“Her classes gave me a good foundation and I said, ‘I’ll stay with this,’” Vince said.

Myhand’s Food and Culture class expanded to a study abroad program that organically developed into a trip to Greece. Myhand has led her students to this epicenter of, what is believed by many, to be the best diet in the world — the Mediterranean diet. According to Myhand, “they almost drink the olive oil.”

The Bible describes Saul being struck down off his horse, sparking him to become an evangelist for Christianity. After a name change, Paul crisscrossed Greece to spread his message. Many of Myhand’s students renamed her the “fruit and vegetable lady” and “Momma Myhand.” Her interest in nutrition was first stirred while riding horses and she has travelled through the same Grecian locales as Paul — all part of her journey of evangelization for good nutrition.

“I joke that I think I was put on this earth to get people to eat more vegetables,” said Myhand, who also grows a home vegetable garden.

The kitchen workstations at the Human Ecology Building, much the same as in the ’60s, continue to serve as a focal point for multiple activities. Besides coursework, her kitchen has attracted community events like training and cooking competitions for 4-H and cooking classes for Big Buddy, a youth mentoring program.

“We thought the kitchen was kitschy and cute,” reflected Moses, who graduated from LSU in 2014. “It felt like you were going into a home rather than an industrial kitchen and it was something you can apply in your own life. I think that’s part of the magic of the kitchen.”

Early on, Myhand had expanded her teaching position to include community outreach, effectively creating the dream job she had visualized as a student. She has also been helping fulfill the cooperative extension mandate of the LSU AgCenter by teaching youth and adults how to cook healthy meals.

Additionally, Myhand has participated in programs with the Baton Rouge Food Bank, trained AgCenter nutrition agents, developed healthy cookbooks with her students, like the popular Women, Infants and Children (WIC) cookbook, “A Loving Spoonful from Us to You,” and regularly appeared on TV programs like “Harvest of the Month,” which airs statewide on Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

“I’m back to being a salesperson — trying to sell people on eating fresh, locally grown produce to improve their health and strengthen the community,” Myhand said. “Part of our role as a land-grant university is also to go out into the community and spread the word.”

She gets her students involved in that effort as well.

As a freshman, Moses began volunteering for Myhand’s community nutrition work with Big Buddy and with youth at the YMCA. After working as a clinical nutritionist at hospitals in New York City and Lafayette, Moses landed her dream job — working with the Louisiana Department of Education to help school food services personnel provide students with healthy meals.

“Once I decided to take the job, she (Myhand) was the first person I called because it is exactly the work that Ms. Myhand inspired me to do,” Moses said. “It’s just kind of everything Judy valued and instilled in me.”

Amid the variety of Myhand’s work, her students remain the primary focus. She and her students seem to feed off each other’s success.

“I’m hoping that I turn the light on,” she said. “My students are doing amazing things and it’s such a thrill!”

Myhand has continued to accomplish her goals while helping build an army of nutrition experts, and it all started in the vintage kitchen nestled in the Human Ecology Building.

“This is my home away from home,” Myhand said. “This food lab is like a hub for connecting with students and the wider community.”

Myhand admits that, as she cleans up her food lab behind closed doors, she hearkens back to her earlier days at LSU. In full entertainer mode, she sings along with ‘60s music belting out from a record player and dances the pony, a style she danced as a pom-pom girl.

“She’s got a little something extra going on,” Vince said about Myhand’s special talent and enthusiasm as an educator.

“She’s absolutely an expert but she always wants to learn,” Moses said. “I think it’s her approach as a forever student that brings a different dynamic to how she relates to her students.”

Even now, Myhand expresses the same effusive joy she’s always had about her work. The well-used and fondly remembered kitchen is a symbol of her success and the focal point for a career that has impacted the lives of students and community members for decades.

She continues to cheer her students on as they build upon her legacy of making people’s lives healthier through good nutrition.

“They are going on and doing what I hoped they would,” Myhand said. “I love what I do.”

Randy LaBauve is a videographer, writer and photographer in AgCenter Communications.

This article appears in the summer 2025 edition of Louisiana Agriculture.

Video by Randy LaBauve

Judy Myhand poses with the materials she has helped create for LSU and the AgCenter to help teach healthful eating habits. Photo by Randy LaBauve

The vintage kitchen where Myhand teaches has helped generations of students learn to cook nutritious meals. Photo by Randy LaBauve

A study abroad class Myhand teaches in Greece focuses on the healthful eating habits embedded in the Mediterranean diet. Provided photo