Starting kids early on vegetables

My grandfather was a goofy man.  If he was laughing hard, he would make a noise that sounded like a donkey with asthma.  Almost a snort, almost a wheeze.  He was a teller of tall tales, and could say the most amazing lies with a straight face and keep grand kids believing him until one of us would recognize that little gleam in his eyes and realize that he was spoofing us.  He was great!  In his way, he encouraged us to always find the funny side of life.  When I was a child, it felt like he was encouraging us to be almost wicked and irreverent; but in retrospect, I know that laughing in the face of adversity can really help one get through the struggles.

As well as his wicked humor, my grandfather taught me a love of gardening and nature.  In the winter, we would go through his gardening catalogs to find all of the strange new varieties of vegetables and flowers.  He would show me apple trees that had three different varieties of fruit and explain grafting to me.  He showed me the different kinds of asparagus and told me that if you want it to stay white, you just cover the plant so it gets no sun.  He taught me that some plants like acid soil and that you should add leaves or pine needles to make them happy.  He taught me that the second year cane on blackberries bears fruit; and if you step on the first year cane, it won't kill the plant.  He gave me the gift of gardening and encouraged my curiosity on that topic.

The other day, I saw a gardening program for kids that will encourage them to garden and to look at trying different kinds of vegetables.  I joined the WNEP (Wisconsin Nutrition Education Program) nutritionists and the Boys and Girls Club at one of the community gardens.  The Boys and Girls Club brought a van load of 3rd-grade kids (usually 14--but only 5 the day I was there) to the garden and, did a scavenger hunt to teach the kids how to identify the different vegetables. They weeded, watered, and harvested and brought the veggies they found to the pavilion where the WNEP educators were waiting to take over.

There, they learned how to prep the vegetables they had harvested and helped make a simple cooked vegetable dish in an electric skillet.  The featured vegetable in this Italian vegetable skillet was zucchini, but while they were working on it, they all got to sample some raw sugar snap peas. All five of them tried the peas and only a couple of noses crinkled up in distaste.  When it came time to try the vegetable skillet, all of the kids and adults gave it a try.  Out of the five kids, only one picked out the zucchini after he tasted it, but the rest took at least a couple of bites of this foreign veggies. Three kids actually ate all that was on their plates, and two went back for seconds.

Out of those five kids, there was one who had never tried zucchini but said he would ask his mom to buy it and make it.  He was very involved in the process of making the recipe; and during the question and answer time, he was able to recite the different ingredients.  I had no doubt that he really would like to have it again and I hoped his mom would get it and try it with him.

My grandfather planted the seed of gardening in me, and each time I saw him there was a conversation about gardening, and different varieties we saw in our gardening catalogs.  That conversation helped that seed to grow and flourish and my love of gardening has been my gift from him and my gift to others.  The seed of trying different vegetables got planted in these kids with this kind of garden experience; but like any seed it needs to be fostered in order to make it grow.  If this young boy tells his mom that he wants a zucchini to make this dish at home and she tells him, "No, you don't like that," that seed will dry up and die.

So, parents and non-parents...I challenge you!  Try a different vegetable that you have never had. If you don't know how to cook it, find one of the millions of recipes online or in a cookbook in the library and let your family be part of the cooking process.  You don't have to buy a lot of it to get a taste--just a bit will do, but try it both raw and cooked.  Talk about this vegetable with your kids or family and ask some questions.  Did you like it?  Are there other ways to prepare this?  Did you like it raw but not cooked or cooked but not raw?  Would you like me to buy this again?  Did you like it enough to put this in your garden?

If we plant the seed early and nurture those seeds, nutritious habits are bound to grow; and what parent does not want to raise healthy kids?

Helping people do better--SNAP educators

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”~Maya Angelou

One of the common arguments I hear about SNAP is that people use the allotment to buy junk food and eat unhealthy.  "They are wasting our money on crap," I often hear.  But what if you weren't raised knowing how to cook?  What if your parents weren't big vegetable eaters and your only experience with vegetables was something from a can smothered in cheese?  What if your family never had a garden and you don't know the first thing about growing your own food or preserving it?  We do what we know until we know better.  But how do we get recipients of SNAP to know better?  To make healthier choices?  To try fresh vegetables that they have never tried before?

Part of the SNAP funding is spent on just that--educating the recipients to make better food choices that will increase the health of their families.  There are SNAP nutrition educators throughout the state who deal with low income families to teach them about nutrition, cooking, gardening, budgeting, meal planning, etc.  These educators teach the basic information people need to survive on a SNAP allotment.

You can find these educators through the University Extension system of your state.  Just look under the "nutrition" or "community resources" tab and you will probably find them.  In Wisconsin, they are called WNEP (Wisconsin Nutrition Education Program) educators, but it is just a different name for the same thing.  If you go on the link for the nutrition education, you will find recipes, handouts and publications that help teach healthy habits. http://eauclaire.uwex.edu/nutrition-education/

WNEP educators work in tandem with other organizations to teach healthy living to as many low income families as possible.  In my area, they work with the schools to teach kids how to cook and eat healthy; they work with halfway houses to teach inmates in transition how to budget and live a healthy life; they work with the local horticulture agency and the Boys and Girls Club to teach lower income kids about gardening and cooking with vegetables; and so much more.

WNEP educators in conjunction with the Eau Claire Community Foundation and the Downtown Farmers Market worked to install the token program that allows SNAP recipients to use their Quest card (foodshare card) to get tokens to be used at the Downtown Farmers Market. (see the link for the farmers market=>) This program gives SNAP recipients access to locally grown fruits and vegetables.  They get the healthiest produce and the money goes to local farmers.

I consider the WNEP educators to be a critical part of the SNAP funding, but while Congress is playing around with the farm bill, their funding could be cut.  How can we expect SNAP recipients to do better with their allotment if they don't know better?  Education is critical to moving ahead toward a better life!

Today, I'm going to see a SNAP educator in action.  I'm going to pop in on Pamela in one of the community gardens where she will be working with kids to educate them on gardening and healthy eating.  More on that later...