Wholesome Food and Nutrition Education in Schools

In her blog School Bites – one mom’s crusade for better nourished kids at school (and at home!) freelance writer and author Stacy Whitman, a busy mother of kindergarten-age twins, talks about her journey helping to develop and implement wholesome food programs and nutritional education classes in her childrens’ school involving and educating parents and children alike. An advocate for hands-on parental involvement and participation, Stacy enrolled her children in “Cooking Kiddos,” a program created in the fall of 2012 by one of the teachers in her children’s school who has a shared passion and concern regarding the lack of food education in our school systems today. The recipes and cooking activities are age appropriate and completely geared toward the children’s interests and participation levels. Families are also encouraged to participate and support the program by helping in the kitchen and donating ingredients and supplies.

To date, the program has been a huge success with enthusiastic and active participation on behalf of both the parents and their children and this year they created a Cooking Kiddos Cookbook filed with recipes from the participating classes which was sold to the parents for $10 each with proceeds going to fund the program next year.

Watch the teacher behind the Cooking for Kiddos program and her students in action!

Teaching Children to Appreciate Healthy Food

School is just around the corner and that means that most of you busy moms are busy multi-tasking and getting your children ready on a variety of different levels: buying clothes, supplies, and planning art lessons and sports and after school activities. You probably don’t have much time or energy left to plan natural healthy meals that your children will eat, so why don’t we help you with a few ideas from Hip Chick Farms to make mealtime a more joyful and easier event for everyone.

In her blog Teach. Eat. Love. Teaching Kids to Love What They Eat, writer and busy mother Anne Myer talks about introducing children to healthy food instead of opting to serve the processed food that is so readily available and advertised everywhere. In her blog teacheatlove.com Anne observes that “In French Kids Eat Everything, Karen LeBillon writes that French parents teach eating skills the same way that they teach sharing and potty training, all of which are important life-skills that, although never learned on the first try, are taught continually until mastered. This French concept of “éducation” when applied to mealtime means that if a child doesn’t appreciate the savory flavor of artichoke or the earthy sweetness of beets, then he or she simply hasn’t been exposed to them enough, and he will learn to enjoy the flavor with time and repeated offerings.” She then goes onto ask “how, then, can we re-educate our children to appreciate healthy eating?”

Anne’s blog is a wonderful tribute to those parents who opt for healthy and all natural meal alternatives. In it she thoughtfully includes numerous practical and creative ideas and recipes to “help parents instill in their children a love of eating real food.”