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My children eat lunch in our classroom. It is mixed blessing! That allows me the opportunity to see what they bring for lunch every day. It does not take long to realize that the young fellow with the pre-packaged, sugar/fat loaded “foods” is always the same fellow who can not work in the afternoon- who is “wired” and unable to take responsibility for his learning. As a direct result of my observations, we began a serious investigation into healthy foods, during the first week of school. Although many of them had lunches full of “treats”, remarkably, most of the children recognized what constitutes healthy food-real vegetables, meat, fruit, cheese, and yogurt. Also most knew exactly what the healthy food was in their lunches. They already came with the understanding that something packaged usually wasn’t as healthy. As well they understood that mom and dad were very busy and so this is what they had time to pack. We investigated the juices they brought. Most had Punch rather than juice. So we filled two glasses. One was filled with real juice and one with 1/3 sugar and some juice. They understood the difference…and that 100% juice was definitely a healthy choice. In one week’s time, nearly every child brought 100% juice. As lunches began looking like recognizable foods, we moved to breakfast cereals . Children brought in empty boxes and we began reading labels. One student quickly understood that “kid’s cereal” had cartoon characters and lots of brightly coloured packaging. When we began comparing “adult “ cereal to “kid’s “ cereal , using just the packaging they could consistently predict the sugar and fat content of each box, every time.
Cleverly they recognized that the less pretty the package, the healthier the cereal. One mom even began changing his son’s cereal choice in the morning, and we had remarkable learning begin to occur every day. The challenge evolved about who could eat the healthiest breakfast each day.
Our older students in Junior High were amazed at the discoveries we made about the amount of sugar hidden in their most favourite foods! This inquiry is a daily topic of conversation! Students of all ages are now looking for unusual foods that are healthy and delightful. We are often the recipients of new discoveries - like persimmons. We all have much more to learn …and we will continue questioning, evaluating and reflecting!
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