The following is an article from a Community Leads grant recipient.

Parents have long grappled with the challenges of getting kids to eat veggies. But in recent decades this issue has become more pressing due to the increasing rates of diet-related diseases now affecting children. For the first time in US history, the current generation of kids is expected to have a shorter lifespan than their parents, in large part because of poor nutrition.

The solution is simpler than you might think: it boils down to creating fun opportunities for kids to discover healthy foods by touching, smelling, chopping, tasting, and growing those foods alongside their peers. I know this is true because it’s what happens in my classroom on a daily basis.

For over a decade, I have engaged four- to fourteen-year-old children in hands-on nutrition, cooking, and gardening lessons in a Baltimore public school. I have seen thousands of kids devour greens and beans, delight in rolling veggie sushi rolls, persevere with chopsticks, beg for more kale, protest when they find out how many chemicals are in their favorite cereals, and shriek joyfully when they spot a praying mantis or a ladybug protecting the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) growing in the school garden.

Teaching food literacy in formal educational settings like schools is important because it puts food and nutrition on par with reading and math. It can also be very effective at inspiring healthier habits. It gives kids a welcome break from academic seatwork and exposes them to positive encouragement from a teacher rather than just the usual messages from their parents. Kids learn skills they can use every day, and the classwork is delicious!

Hands-on food classes also provide opportunities for different kinds of intelligence to shine; many students who struggle academically become successful leaders in my class. Learning is fun when food is involved, and it can bring other academic subjects to life. Science and math become tangible when measuring ingredients, finding the circumference of a sushi roll, or identifying states of matter while boiling or steaming foods. Students learn geography and social studies through international cooking lessons when they prepare traditional dishes made with Indigenous foods. Kids enjoy learning about cultural traditions around the world. Positive exposure to cultural diversity via foodways promotes acceptance of other people. A few days ago, a seventh grader surprised me when he arrived at class and said, “As-salaam alaykum,” an Arabic greeting he learned last year when we made hummus-and-falafel pita sandwiches and learned about the Middle East. My food literacy classes have increased curiosity and acceptance in my students about the global community.

My school is culturally and socioeconomically diverse, and all the children learn about food together. The ethnic breakdown of our student body is roughly 20-40-40 White, Black, and Hispanic, and the poverty rate is 76 percent. Some children come to our school not knowing English and many students are being raised by a grandparent. Every one of the 850 students through eighth grade is assigned to my class every year. Students can also participate in the culinary arts club or the garden club after school. Kids in these clubs cook 200 meals for the Community Arts Nights that take place in the fall, winter, and spring. During these events, the band and orchestra perform, students show their art, and dinner is served in the cafeteria. Students cook and serve theme-based meals alongside volunteer parents and high school students whom I used to teach.

Our first community dinner, 2004

The children are also involved in International Night, a celebration of diversity. Last year, a mother from Russia taught kids in the culinary arts club how to make a hearty potato and cabbage dish, and several mothers and grandmothers from Mexico taught us how to make both sweet and savory tamales. The students served these foods at International Night alongside dance performances providing live entertainment.

Vitamin B edible art project made out of vitamin B-rich foods and representing the body parts nourished by vitamin B – the bones and nervous system.

The food literacy program at my school was initiated in 2004 with grants obtained by my mother and mentor, Dr. Antonia Demas of the nonprofit Food Studies Institute (FSI). My mom did her PhD research at Cornell with Dr. T. Colin Campbell as her nutrition advisor. She trained and mentored thousands of teachers over the years on how to use her award-winning Food Is Elementary curriculum, and wrote hundreds of grants to initiate food literacy programs in schools around the country and abroad.

The goal of FSI is to have a food literacy educator in every school nationwide. My public charter school in Baltimore, Hampstead Hill Academy, was the first school in the nation to make food literacy education a part of every student’s education. When Dr. Demas initiated the program in 2004, she told the principal she was willing to write grants for three years to get the program established so that others could see its educational value. If the school community did not value the program after three years of outside funding supporting it, she would take the program elsewhere. I am pleased to report that the school has fully bought in. After those first three years of grant funding, the school has paid for my salary and benefits as well as all food and gardening supplies. Additionally, the principal built a kitchen classroom in a room that previously had no plumbing, outfitting it with three sinks, a dishwasher, a refrigerator, a stove, and cupboards. During the first year of the program, the principal committed to transforming a paved space into a school garden; two years later, the garden space was doubled.

The investment has paid off. The food literacy program has changed the eating behaviors of thousands of children and their families. The mother of a preschool student recently asked me how to prepare the eggplant her son had in class because he kept bugging her to make it. A grandmother told me her granddaughter saved her allowance to buy guacamole ingredients so she could make it with her friend at home. A father of fourth grade twins proudly shared that the twins had recently cooked a healthy dinner for the family.

Food literacy education provides a positive solution to our nation’s health, education, and environmental problems. If we want to prevent children from getting diet-related diseases, we need to educate them on healthy eating, and schools can and should play a vital role. Right now, the food industry is spending millions of dollars marketing to children. Many busy parents don’t have enough time or resources to teach their children how to eat well. Schools can help bridge this gap and give students the knowledge and skills they need for a happy, healthy future.

In August 2020, the Food Studies Institute (FSI) was awarded a microgrant by CNS to engage twenty-four families in fun sensory education about healthy eating during the pandemic. In the Healthy Foods for Healthy Families class, six families at a time will participate in five sequential online classes centered on vitamin-rich foods that promote health. Thanks to the grant, each family will receive a grocery bag full of fresh colorful whole plant-based foods and learn how these foods affect health as they experience and eat these foods in hands-on activities. From the comfort of their home via Zoom, they will taste and describe each food and learn to associate specific colors in foods with vitamins, with the goal of eating a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables every day.

After the tasting activity, families will be instructed on how to safely prepare the foods to create an edible art project representing the body parts nourished by vitamins. For example, a variety of vitamin A–rich foods will be used to create a portrait including eyes, hair, skin, and teeth (the body parts requiring vitamin A). Before eating, families will participate in a virtual “Art Walk” to admire each other’s creations. They will also engage in cooking activities, and additional recipes will be provided so families can continue preparing the foods in different ways at home. Based on my experience working alongside parent volunteers and their children at school events, I am confident that the positive food memories created in this class will lead to long-lasting changes in eating behavior and greater acceptance of a variety of plant-based foods.

If you want to get a food literacy program going in your school district or support the work of FSI, please contact us at foodstudies.org. Also check out Dr. Demas’s children’s book SURPRISES IN MILI’S SUITCASE: How Diabetes was Cured with Food, written with and illustrated by Katherine Orr with a foreword by T. Colin Campbell.