The Good Life is an Oakland, California-based nonprofit that offers healthy aging activities for older adults, especially those in marginalized communities.
However, it originated as a clinical research study on dementia and diabetes prevention by the U.C. Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
Recent studies at the center conclude that healthy lifestyle changes — like cooking and eating nutritious foods, or mitigating social isolation — could slow or stop the onset of both dementia and diabetes.
“We now have a really strong body of evidence… that what’s good for your heart is also what’s good for your brain. Those things you would do for your cardiovascular health is also good for [preventing] Alzheimer’s Disease,” Dr. David Johnson of The Good Life and U.C. Davis told ABC 30 News.
Today, the organization gathers 40 to 55 cooks every week around a Zoom session in their respective kitchens. Several members of the class are Black women who live with diabetes.
The class instructor and executive director of The Good Life, Shanette Merrick said she set out to transform the way Black elders perceive food, selecting seasonal recipes and spotlighting foods that promote optimal brain functioning and overall health.
“They’re learning how to really look at their plates and say, ‘That heals my pancreas, this is good for my heart, this is good for my skin — everything on this plate is healing my body,’” Merrick told Civil Eats. “That’s super powerful.”
As a way to combat both health and food access disparities among the older Black community, The Good Life also provides free food pickups for participants to get the ingredients they need for class.
It is here where they connect most, chatting with grocery bags in hand and forming life-saving intergenerational relationships.
“Our kitchens should be our pharmacies; our kitchens should be our spaces of healing,” Merrick told Civil Eats. “We don’t pass down the diabetes gene; we pass down recipes and eating habits.”
And according to Dr. Johnson, making these changes together makes them a lot easier to manage.
“The important part of The Good Life is that you’re not alone. We’ve built it so that it’s an online community,” he told ABC 30 News.
“Not only are health coaches there to interact with you, person-to-person in a live format … you’re also there with a group of people who are a lot like you. The social support aspect of it, doing it together as a band of older adults, helps support positive lifestyle change.”
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A version of this article was originally published in The 2025 Food Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image courtesy of The Good Life
