Cooking, farm tours, locally grown food becoming part of education

By Barbara Blake, Staff Writer

Jordan Scheffer and Brian Word-Sims don’t care much about the science behind nutrition. But they know what tastes good.

“I like potatoes and green beans, and I liked mashed bananas — usually just the mushy kind,’’ said Jordan, a kindergartner in Susan Shillcock’s K-2 class at Dickson Elementary School.

“I like kiwi and papaya and persimmons, and spinach and chard,” said Brian, Jordan’s second-grade classmate. “And grapefruit.’’

Brian figured out early on the secret to enjoying that tangy fruit.

“See, it’s usually kind of sour, so you just put a little sugar on it, and there you go,’’ he said. “Grapefruit is good for you.’’

Too much sugar, though, is not good for you, both children cautioned.

“Sugar can give you diabetes if you eat too many,’’ Jordan said.

“It’s a blood sugar thing,’’ Brian explained.

Much of what these children know about nutrition and how it impacts the body is a result of a parent-spearheaded program at Dickson called Eat Healthy, Learn Better. Launched last spring, the program revolves around fresh, local food in the cafeteria, an expanded and healthy salad bar, cooking demonstrations and classes, farm tours, and take-home recipe cards printed in English and Spanish.

It was the brainchild of JaneAnne Tager, whose children attend Dickson, to aggressively teach children about fresh, locally grown foods. With guidance and support from the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), Tager wrote a grant to the Buncombe County Medical Society Foundation and was awarded $3,500 to kick off the project.

Using much of the grant money to buy ingredients for cooking classes and live cooking demonstrations, Tager and ASAP, along with other parents, teachers and local chefs, have opened up a new world of appreciation for fresh produce and healthy foods.

“At one of the cooking classes and demonstrations, our guest chef made ‘mac and trees,’ which was macaroni and cheese with broccoli, and some of the kids had thirds,’’ Tager said. “One teacher said one of her kids who will never try anything tried it and loved it. We brought the recipe home and my kids made me make it for dinner that night.’’

Then there was the class when the kids made roasted root vegetables — not your standard snack fare among the younger set.

“We served them in Dixie cups, and the kids were chugging it like juice,’’ Tager said. “It makes you feel so good, like, wow, this is really worth it.’’

Children like Jordan and Brian, who have embraced the joys of fresh, healthy foods, are the beneficiaries of the special program at Dickson. But there are hundreds of other students in schools throughout the region who are enjoying the benefits of healthier foods thanks to the efforts of ASAP, which has become a premiere organization in the Southeast for promoting locally grown produce, connecting farmers with child nutrition directors and serving as a bridge between grantors and school food programs.

“What we’re trying to do is kind of be a broker between farmers and schools, and to help support and promote all these programs,’’ said Emily Jackson, project director for ASAP’s Growing Minds program. “If you have a chance to explain it to anybody — it resonates. It’s definitely win-win. You keep local food dollars in the local community, and children have the freshest food possible.’’

Children in all other Asheville City Schools and in Madison, Mitchell and Yancey county schools are now offered locally grown foods in their school cafeterias — something rarely seen as recently as a decade ago.

It is a trend that health-conscious adults hope will continue, even with the reality that healthy foods unfortunately are more expensive.

Cindy Lawler, child nutrition director for Asheville City Schools and a vital part of the system’s growing emphasis on locally grown produce, said she is working with Jackson to encourage principals in the Asheville system to develop programs like Dickson’s.

“It’s especially important in the elementary schools, to get kids used to tasting healthier, locally grown foods, and they take that with them as they grow older,’’ Lawler said. “Hopefully, other schools will buy into this if they’re shown how. But it’s very important to have support from parents, as well.’’

Jackson said there are stumbling blocks to getting the produce from the farms of Western North Carolina onto the cafeteria tables.

“The main obstacle is that we’ve built a food system where it’s easier to get apples shipped in from Washington State than from Henderson County next door,’’ Jackson said. “We’re basically taking on the audacious task of rebuilding a local food system. But it’s catching on, partly because of the obesity epidemic, and the price of fuel. People who never thought about it before are saying, yeah, local food does make a lot more sense.’’

Linda Kinney, operations manager for the Medical Society Foundation, whose endowment program funded the Dickson project, said the foundation’s advisory committee was impressed with the grant proposal.

“They saw this as a way to start getting a systematic approach to the way children and families eat,’’ Kinney said. “They especially liked that it involved local food, teaching children good eating habits early, and that it was a different approach to a lot of the efforts looking at obesity — which is clearly going in the wrong direction. And it’s such a collaboration within the community, with local farms, parents, schools and the local restaurants that participate.’’

Tager said she hopes other schools will develop their own programs, with the help of parents, faculty and local chefs and restaurateurs. It is also critical to have the support of child nutrition directors like Lawler and cafeteria managers like Dickson’s Tina Rector, who are champions of fresh foods in spite of the extra expense.

“It’s a combination of people who are believers in the whole ASAP vision, preserving our farmers, having our kids understand the farms and make the connection to what they eat and where it comes from,’’ Tager said. “There’s been such a disconnect with families not having time to cook, choosing fast foods for meal options, so kids don’t know where food comes from. And that’s a basic thing — what our Earth provides for us.’’

• To learn more about the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and its programs, visit www.asapconnections.org or call 236-1282.

What the kids are making

Winter squash –

one whole (acorn,

butternut, buttercup,

delicata)

3 or 4 apples

1/2 cup chopped

walnuts

A good glug of maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon of

cinnamon

1/2 cup apple cider

Handful of cranberries

Cube squash and apples. Place squash in baking dish with maple syrup, cinnamon, walnuts and sprinkling of cranberries and apple cider. When squash is almost fork-tender, add apples. Bake until apples are tender.

Mac-n-Cheese with Trees

1/2 pound of uncooked elbow macaroni

1 1/2 cups broccoli florets (lightly steamed )

4 tablespoons butter

2 large eggs

6 ounces evaporated milk

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

3/4 teaspoon dry mustard

10 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

Cook the pasta until al dente’. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and mustard. Stir this into the pasta and add the cheese and broccoli. Cook on low heat for three minutes or until creamy.

Flying Cloud Farm Recipe

3 cups chopped kale

(or other greens)

4 medium potatoes

6 green onions (or 1 onion) chopped

1/3 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter

Sprig parsley (or try dill)

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Cube potatoes and boil until tender. (Reserve water for baking.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stir kale and onions in a heavy pan over medium heat for 5 minutes. (The water that clings to the kale from washing is sufficient moisture for cooking.) Mash potatoes with milk and butter. Combine with kale, onions, parsley, salt and pepper. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Copyright © 2006 WNC Parent.