Eat your vegetables...

In our Start by Eating Right classes, our curriculum designed for parents of young children, there is one common question that keeps coming up again and again… How do I get my kids to try new vegetables? Of course there is no one right answer to this question, but it turns out that one of the best resources are the ideas that come from parents in the class sharing their own experiences of what works for them and what doesn’t. Here is a list of just some of the ideas that we came up in some of my classes about getting kids to try new foods:

• When introducing a new food, encourage kids to take a “no-thank-you bite”. All they have to do is have one taste of a food that they say they don’t like. That way they will be able to prove for sure that they really don’t like it…. or maybe they will even be surprised to find that they actually do like it after all.

• Keep encouraging kids to try foods even if they have already tried them before. Tastes change over time, so they may find that they actually like a food that they previously did not like.

• Kids are less likely to want to taste foods that are unfamiliar. So if they don’t try it the first time, don’t give up. Keep offering a new food and eventually your child might be willing to give it a try.

• If your kids like to eat meat but don’t like to eat vegetables, then try cooking vegetables with a little bit of meat. This way the vegetables will pick up flavor from the meat, and it will be harder for them to eat just meat with no vegetables.

• Be a good role model. If you are willing to try new foods and eat more vegetables yourself, chances are your children will be willing to follow your example.

• Allow kids to help you pick out vegetables in the store, or have them help you in the kitchen. If they are more involved in the process, they might be more willing to eat foods that they helped pick out or prepare.

A Day in the Life of Operation Frontline

Foodie: someone who has an ardent or refined interest in food

Some Solid Grounders know us as “the foodies.” And that we are, in both our professional and personal lives. Pretty much everything we do revolves around food, much to our enjoyment. We are always looking for nutritious, colorful, affordable and (most importantly) delicious recipes to add to our repertoire for class!

You may see us in and out, up and down the elevator with a cart full of food, sometimes multiple times a day. A typical day includes one off-site class, somewhere around Seattle, from Lake City to White Center or anywhere in between. Classes take place at community centers, schools, shelters, housing complexes—anywhere that has the space for a class of 10-15 participants and our teaching crew, which consists of a volunteer chef and a volunteer nutritionist from the community. We teach classes to adults, to elementary age kids, adolescents, to kids and parents together, to pregnant/parenting teens, using specialized curricula designed by the national OFL office.

Classes are six sessions long, two hours each week. A typical two-hour class session takes about four real hours.
Before the session: We arrive early to set up, toting a mobile kitchen of sorts: portable gas burners, pots and pans, bakeware, utensils, knives, towels, and cleaning supplies. We bring all the food for the recipes we will make in class, as well as enough for each participant to take bag of groceries home. This gives them a chance to practice new skills they pick up, and try out the new recipes on friends and family.

During the session: We welcome participants back and they report what they made with last week’s take-home groceries, usually while munching on a snack the chef prepared. Soon after, the chef gets cookin’! Participants grab knives and cutting boards and start chopping, peeling, mixing, under the guidance of the chef. They simmer, sauté, and bake their way to barley jambalaya, breakfast burritos, corn chowder, Thai basil chicken chili, pizza (with homemade dough!), and whole roast chickens!

Participants crack eggs for breakfast burritos in a Step Up To Eating Right class at Southwest Youth and Family Services.

When the first steps are done and the food gets on the fire, the nutritionist takes over with a lesson or two to fit the theme of the week. Some examples of lessons include how much sugar is in popular drinks, the different kinds of fats, how whole grains are processed into white flour, and the importance of eating breakfast.

They flip back into cooking mode for the next steps. Once the food is ready, it is time to eat! We eat, enjoy, critique, and solicit suggestions for ways to stretch, modify, or improve the recipe. Then we hand each participant a bag of groceries and send them on their way.

The next day, this process happens at a different site, with different volunteers and a different group of participants. In between classes, we can be found at QFC, buying supplies for the week (sometimes 40 cans of beans, 24 pounds of frozen chicken thighs, and 10 bags of shredded cheese elicit curious glances from fellow shoppers or questions from the check-out clerks) or in the office, scheduling new sites, coordinating volunteers for classes, or updating our new blog...