Never Seen Kids So Excited About Fruits And Veggies!
Try this "Rainbow Nutrition" activity at home
Hi Friends!
I recently taught my Rainbow Nutrition Cooking Class to more than sixty elementary school students, and WOW…
Every time I teach this class, I’m floored by how excited the kids get about fruits and veggies.
In my recent classes, most of the students came from extremely low-income households, and the opportunity to offer them a playful, hands-on, sensory exploration with fresh foods was not only novel, but deeply meaningful, and for some students rare.
Access to fresh food is a major human rights issue in our country, and while my work with these students was a drop in the bucket, it felt like a step forward.
It also makes me appreciate the enormous privilege my children have being raised with access to and awareness of fresh, local food. This is because it was a core value for my Italian mother, who’s culture centered on eating seasonally and cooking from scratch.
However, in the U.S., a seasonal food culture has become largely displaced by a food culture where any ingredient is available year-round, and an increasingly large percentage of our diets is processed.
So in this context, which is commonplace across socio-economic classes, how do we help the next generation understand where their food comes from, how to make healthy food choices, and how to prepare food?
Culinary and nutrition education can set the foundation for a lifetime of healthy habits that contribute to self-confidence, physical well-being, creativity, connection, environmental health, and community.
Unfortunately, US students receive less than 8 hours of required nutrition education each school year, far below the 40 to 50 hours that are needed to affect behavior change (CDC).
So naturally, this education falls to parents. (Sigh.)
But, many—perhaps, most—parents are not certified nutritionists or experienced cooks.
As a parent who has made food my profession and nutrition my passion, I still feel exasperated when I have to explain basic nutritional concepts to my child.
Wouldn’t it be amazing for children to learn and understand the foundations of cooking and nutrition at school?
But since that is not the case, I’m here to offer different ideas and ways for parents to give their children the gift of a lifetime of healthy eating habits.
In today’s email, I want to offer you the home edition of my Rainbow Nutrition Cooking Class, as a primer for your children (and perhaps you!) on the importance of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, and how to find them.
Cue this up for a weekend activity!
You can break this lesson into bite-sized pieces. For example, you can do steps 1-5, and steps 6, 7, and 8 separately at different times.
I’d LOVE to hear if you do this at home, and any stories from your activity. For example, one of my students made a pickled beet and broccoli “sandwich concoction!” Encourage your children to be curious observers and little chefs, and get creative with their ideas and flavor combinations! And if you remember, please take pictures and share them with me.
Let’s get started…
NOTE: I’ve taught this class at several elementary schools, including for my daughters’ classes, and it’s always incredibly informative and fun. This is a class you can easily replicate at home to set the foundation for a lifetime of healthy eating habits. If you are limited on time and/or don’t have access to fresh produce to do this at home, please let me know. I’d love to help find a solution! I can also offer this as an online class, or in person if it makes sense! To inquire, reply to this email or send me a message.
RAINBOW NUTRITION COOKING CLASS
BEFORE YOU START: TIPS FOR SUCCESS
Invite friends to join! Kids are more likely to explore new flavors when they see their peers doing the same. Plus, this is a fun collaborative activity, and I believe that if kids are having fun, they’re more likely to remember what they learn and associate food with positive memories.
Make time to practice cutting and slicing your rainbow of produce. If time is limited, pre-cut samples so that the children can taste everything at the end.
Turn tasting up a notch. Not all fruits and veggies are tasty raw or undressed (think: eggplant, beets, purple cabbage). Sometimes, I like to offer two simple dips to enhance the tasting experience:
Nut butter mixed with maple syrup and cinnamon
Favorite Balsamic Dressing (located in this FREE meal plan)
Download and print this PDF before you start:
EASY, STEP-BY-STEP OVERVIEW
Source a rainbow of fruits and vegetables: You can collect a mix of produce from your grocery store, farmers market, or a combination of places, and choose items that can be grown locally and/or are imported. Bonus points if your child helps you shop for a rainbow!
Unpack your bag with your children: Ask your children to help you “unpack a rainbow”—this will get them curious!
Invite your children to organize the produce into a rainbow: I’ve seen kids arrange their rainbow in lots of different ways. It doesn’t matter how they do it, as long as they follow the colors of the rainbow.
“Did you know, every color in the rainbow gives you SUPERPOWERS?!” Get excited when you tell your kids that each color represents a different superpower. I mean, come on! It’s cool, right? Another word for food superpowers is NUTRITION. “It’s a big word, right?” Nutrition is the process of getting the food you need to grow healthy and strong. Now’s a good time to ask everyone to stand up tall and flex their muscles.
Let’s learn each color’s superpower: If you downloaded the PDF, there are symbols you can print and cut out. As you go through each color, your child can put one symbol next to the color group it pertains to. We know that many of the beneficial properties of each color group cross over into other color groups as well, but this primer helps us begin to understand some of the different nutrients fruits and vegetables can provide:
RED (HEART): Red foods keep our heart healthy and strong, so it can pump blood throughout our body. I like to help kids find their pulse on their neck or wrist. Keep silent for five seconds, and feel the magic of our heart pumping blood through our bodies.
ORANGE (EYES): Orange foods help our eyes see better. “Who wants to see in the dark like a cat?!” Then we have to eat more orange food.
YELLOW (HEALING FROM WOUNDS): Yellow foods are especially good at helping our bodies heal from cuts, scrapes, and wounds.
GREEN (BONES AND WARDING OFF GERMS): “Anyone remember Popeye?” Every kid shakes their head “no.” “Well, there was this cartoon when I was a kid named Popeye, and he would eat a can of spinach and watch his muscle pop up before his eyes!)” Green foods make our bones and muscles strong. Green foods also help keep us from getting sick.
BLUE/PURPLE/PINK (BRAIN): This food group helps make our brain strong! Have you noticed how when you slice a purple cabbage in half, it looks like a brain?
What happens to these superpowers when food is grown close to home vs. far away? For me, a foundation of healthy eating is sourcing food from your bioregion because it has the most flavor and nutrition, with the added benefit of investing in your local community and reducing carbon emissions from long-distance transport. Ask your kids to sort the rainbow of produce into groups of what grows near you and what grows far away.
It’s fun to see if they know where produce like lemons come from! You can show them pictures of food that grows far away, and what the environment looks like.
“So, how did those lemons [or other imported produce] get here?” Work with your children to think about the modes of transportation and time required for certain produce to travel. Draw a picture.
Food has the most nutrition (and flavor!) when it is picked at peak harvest, and decreases over time. So the father food has to travel, the less nutrition it has (and often, the less flavor). Great examples are tomatoes and strawberries.
BUT, it’s important to note that it is better to eat fruits and vegetables that are not grown locally, than not at all.
Seasonal eating: Now, sort the food into what grows in the season you’re in, and what doesn’t. This will help reinforce what food comes from far away vs. locally. If you want to go further, you can talk about ways to preserve food at peak harvest, to enjoy in other seasons (such as making jam and pickles, freezing berries, or storing root vegetables in cool places like basements and root cellars).
Tasting time! But FIRST, let’s wash our hands and our fruits and vegetables. Once everything is clean, let’s prepare a clean work surface with a cutting board and an age-appropriate knife for your child. Work with them to safely slice and cut your rainbow of fruits and vegetables to taste. Some of my favorite moments in classes have been watching kids’ lips pucker as they suck a lemon, and then notice the difference when they dab it on a leaf of spinach or a blueberry.
So there you have it, an introduction to the magical rainbow of fruits and vegetables, the most important food group for our health.
NEXT UP: I’ll be sharing a video teaching children (and grown-ups) how to safely cut and slice fruits and vegetables, and an overview of age-appropriate knives for children.
From snow-frosted fields, craving spring greens,
♡ Emma
I love this!! Not sure what age this is intended for but I can see my 3 year old loving it. Thanks!!
This is genius!