From the Frontline: A Report from Seattle
Posted by Emily Gordon on Tuesday, August 31, 2010
As an AmeriCorps member with Operation Frontline in Seattle, I coordinate hands-on cooking and nutrition classes hosted at different community agencies across the city.
Chefs and nutritionists volunteer their time to teach 6-week classes with families and individuals at risk of hunger and malnutrition. This summer I am excited to be piloting a new curriculum for kids with a group of 3rd-5th graders participating in a summer program at the Refugee Women’s Alliance in Seattle. Each week, kids have really enjoyed doing taste test activities. The kids are open and excited when trying different and new fruits and vegetables, and they are very creative and observant when describing new foods. Sugar snap peas are moon shaped and bumpy, cherries are soft, red hearts, strawberries squishy red triangles, bok choy is crisp and tree shaped.
This past week we talked about healthy drinks and snacks, and we did an activity to look at how much sugar is really in different popular beverages. Each student looked at a different beverage, and we practiced reading nutrition labels and then did a little bit of math to actually determine how many teaspoons of sugar are in each drink. We then measured out the sugar in order visualize how much sugar was in each drink. Kids were really surprised to see how much sugar was in each bottle, and we brainstormed different ways to cut back on sugary drinks.
During the cooking part of the class, we did a healthy drinks taste test. Together we prepared five different kinds of healthy drinks: fruit-yogurt smoothies, lemon-lime water, orange-lemon water, mint-cucumber water, and raspberry-lime spritzer. Kids traveled to different stations around the room, tasting each new drink and writing down observations.
The kids were all excited and surprised to learn how easy it is to make healthy and tasty drinks at home. One student shared that recently his family had stopped drinking soda, and he was really excited to share with them the new drinks that we made in class. Another student told me that even though she usually doesn’t like trying new foods, she actually liked almost everything that we made that day. It has been a really fun class and I am sad that it will be ending soon, but I am excited for all the progress we have made and all the valuable skills and knowledge I know these kids will keep with them for a long time.
Photo above: Chef Dennis with and class participant Tiana at Step Up to Eating Right class Southwest Youth and Family Services, April 2010.
August 31, 2010 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: AmeriCorps, Cooking Matters, event, no kid hungry, Operation Frontline
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