Friday, June 19, 2009

First harvest for the kids working on the White House garden


The following story is an audio report of the first harvest in the garden that local Washington, D.C., students are helping with on the south lawn of the White House. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105490054

You can see more images at the White House website.

This is the first garden at the White House--a good model for kids and their schools--since the victory garden days under Eleanor Roosevelt.

Much of the reported benefits for the kids remind me of the wonderful program, the Edible Schoolyard, started by Alice Waters.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Does forbidding food make kids want it more?


The above clip comes from the BBC series (also seen on Discovery Health), The Truth About Food. More clips from the series can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/flashapp/nonflash.shtml

This clip presents some interesting questions about whether it will do any good to forbid kids from eating particular foods at school. Does it do any good to forbid sugary snacks, say from vending machines? Does it make a difference that the raisins are still there, really just being delayed not forbidden? Isn't this really just proof that you can get kids to eat--with gusto!--healthy snacks like raisins?