Nutrition education is essential to Urban Sprouts programming; in every class students get the opportunity to taste a piece of fruit or vegetable. Sometimes, when we’re lucky, we also have the opportunity to make foods that require more preparation like chopping, sauteing, and frying. Students love the opportunity to be in charge of their food and learn practical skills they can use in their own kitchens at home. While students are more than happy to be sous chefs and chefs, they are less eager to be consumers and try their creations.
Eating healthy many times means trying new foods, especially vegetables, that are unfamiliar. It’s even harder to get students to try foods that they are familiar with but have only had in a very unappealing tasteless form that haunts their memories, “One time my aunt made boiled cauliflower and it made me throw up.” Preparing the same foods in different ways is very helpful, students that don’t like papaya by itself for example, might enjoy it in sushi instead.
Recently, I made a kitchen gadget purchase that has increased vegetable consumption in the garden twenty-fold: a $12 used juicer. Students at ISA have been unable to stop juicing everything they come across. It seems that while a student might not be a fan of whole vegetables, they enjoy drinking juice and are more open to at least sipping the vegetables in juice form. A HUGE surprise for me this week, was the case load of celery from food bank that we juiced dry! Oranges, pears, and carrots were all juiced and approved, however the clear favorite is Celery with Apple juice! Nutritious and delicious, students found that the juice “does NOT taste like celery” AND it “tastes like apple juice, but not as sweet.” WIN for the garden, nutrition and the worm bin that gets all the juicer’s excess pulp!
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