#growitknowit

-Gardening is a great way to stimulate your little ones’ imaginations and encourage them to exercise their creativity. Whether they’re selecting plants, learning to grow things, or planting, the garden is a great environment to explore and discover new and exciting ways to build and grow.

-Fun, productive, and exciting; kids love exploring the outdoors. And encouraging your kids to get out into the garden will not only help them to develop core life skills, but will also help improve their sensory and physical development.

-Gardening is a great way to boost self-esteem, stimulate independent thought, and increase engagement levels.

The topic of children’s eating habits is one fraught with controversy and consternation. A recent op-ed in the New York Times brought the conversation roaring back. 

The focus was on the difficulty lower income parents have in trying to introduce more fresh fruits and vegetables to their children who resist all but the tried and true. Children in neighborhoods without grocery stores tend to be reliant on processed foods purchased from convenience stores and fast food. Heavily laden as they are with fat, salt and sugar, young palates are less than receptive to Mom’s entreaties to “eat your vegetables.”   Mothers with limited monthly budget for food argue they cannot afford to “experiment” with finicky kids whose refusals cause food to be thrown away.

Responses ran the gamut. Dr. Will Wilkoff, a retired pediatrician and author of “Coping With The Picky Eater,” hit the nail on the head. Hunger can be a great motivator. Parents of all economic stripes need to take the picky eater on without equivocating. Toddlers become teens. Giving in is giving up!

One of the tenets of The Stalk’s philosophy is “waste not, want not.” We are constantly reminded we waste 40% of the food produced in the US. A new mantra could be “one meal, one nation!” All kidding aside, parents need to prepare meals with nutrition and cost top-of-mind. Multiple selections wastes resources, creates frustration and panders to little people’s sense of entitlement (read: manipulation).

Plan Ahead

I see parents making poor choices every day. Sugary snacks after school, consumed walking around the supermarket while purchasing processed foods for the dinner breakfast and lunch that is to follow. Planning and shopping ahead keeps you on budget and way ahead of the resistant toddler, well on your way to teaching children to appreciate foods of all types. Engaging them in cooking and even making their own lunches has a huge impact.

An illuminating study found that consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is pretty much the same across all economic levels. A large percentage of the food-shopping dollar is spent on “miscellaneous.” Saying you can’t afford to feed fresh is just as sad as saying you don’t have the time. No matter your economic or geographic situation, take the time to make feeding yourself and your family with the best nutrition you can get THE priority. 

Grow It, Know It

The drought in California is not just about California, or even water. When we consider that the Central Valley produces 25% of the food we eat, it’s time to broaden our thinking about what we eat and just how we source our food. The horizon is not sunny for the behemoths of industrial agri-business. People are panicked over genetically modifying anything, overuse of pesticides, insensitivity to animal welfare and the working conditions of agricultural workers.

Figures vary widely, bandied about in op-eds and food columns, but consider these. California provides 99% of all almonds, 95% of celery, 94% of broccoli, 88% of avocados, 86% of cauliflower and 81% of carrots. Staggering to take in… we are all California. As Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times earlier this year, “It’s time for a fundamental rethinking of America’s food factory.” In California, 80% of the water humans use goes to agriculture, hardly sustainable.

Trucking food across the country in refrigerated trucks, not only adds a remarkable carbon output, but it seems irrational as we accept what future indicators predict. No, we cannot grow our own food on any realistic scale. Even if you have a yard, most cities do not allow farm animals in the city limits. We may have a green thumb in spring and summer, but feeding our communities, states and regions is the challenge before us.

1. Local Source One of the more remarkable and fantastic movements in the last 25 years is the fresh market phenomenon. It used to be rare, very seasonal and a bit elitist. Today, this movement is spawning year-round access to locally produced fruits, vegetables and artisanal basics. Long-shuttered markets of another era and unused buildings sprout small businesses that feed both body and economy. A way of life is returning in every region of this country.

2. Schoolyard Gardens Teaching children the health implications of eating well, appreciating where food comes from, understanding the hard work and commitment of those who grow food is critical as we move to a more realistic production model.

3. Waste Not, Want Not When we drill down on the waste we create in food just thrown away, the more dramatic fact is that 30% of the water used to grown that food is literally being flushed at the landfill too!

Let’s all cheer “The Food Movement.” Our eating and purchasing habits are shifting. Just look at most supermarkets with bigger and bigger produce departments pushed right up to the door. Grab ‘n go outlets everywhere. Fresh, fruit and vegetable content dominates the refrigerated shelves.

The Stalk is increasingly aware of a ludicrous trend in food promotion, presuming and perpetuating the notion that vegetables are awful, icky, bad, and nothing a child would ever want to eat. If we just don’t call them vegetables out loud we can “slip” them to our unsuspecting children. Who would actually want to create an aversion to a major source of vitamins, minerals and fiber? This literally “plants” a negative reputation for vegetables. Advertisements for everything from soup to baked beans seek to hide the fact that these items are actually vegetables.

Madison Avenue is churning out clever spots for gigantic corporate agri-interests while perpetrating the fantasy that all children hate all vegetables, recoiling at the very mention of the word. “Ix nay on the egetableves,” resorting to the Pig Latin my parents and grandparents used to confound and conceal.