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classroom food shot
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Have you ever seen a watermelon radish? Thanks to the Farm to School Snack Program, many kids in Collier County Public Schools have not only seen the pink and green vegetable, they have gotten to try it, too.
If you ever have smothered veggies in cheese, ranch dip or sent them undercover in a favorite sauce or baked good in order to get your kids to eat them, you might be surprised to know that your child has been trying them in the raw at school for the past year. Collier County’s Farm to School Snack Program (F2SS), modeled after the United States Department of Agriculture’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), is a vital part of the B-Fit program that forgoes the stealthy health maneuvers by offering them to children as a snack in their whole, fresh-picked form.
The purpose of the FFVP is to provide children in the poorest schools a fresh fruit or vegetable snack outside of breakfast and lunch three to five days per week in an effort to increase produce consumption and affect the present and future health of economically needy children. The FFVP currently is in 11 Collier Schools. Twyla Leigh, Collier County Schools supervisor of Nutrition, Menu Planning and Procurement, thought it would be wonderful if all the students in the district could benefit from a similar program.
Trying something new
“Many of our children are exposed to a limited variety of fruits and vegetables at home for various reasons,” she explains. Cost prevents some parents from purchasing fresh produce, but for others, it is a matter of preference. Parents often offer the fruits and vegetables they prefer, which may be limited. Together, Leigh and Collier County Public School Director of Nutrition Services Dawn Houser developed the F2SS program to give all Collier elementary students a chance to try something new.
The program began last spring three days per week with local produce and was based on seasonal availability. The FFVP is offered three days per week and is funded by federal grants. For the current school year, the Farm to School snack is offered one day per week and the frequency varies based on the Department of Nutrition Services budget. The produce usually is served whole, raw and without dips, which keeps labor to a minimum. “We are the only school district doing this locally funded healthy snack program in Florida, or anywhere else as far as we know,” Leigh boasts.
Popular pluot
In September and October, the program began offering stone fruits as they came into season. The aromatic pluot, with its tangy purple plum skin and succulent apricot flesh was popular with the kids, and prompted my own children to add it to my shopping list. Leigh was pleasantly surprised to hear from Golden Gate Elementary School parents at a Wellness Wednesday meeting that their children were now asking for green beans and asparagus at home. Students at Big Cypress Elementary get to enjoy watching Principal Sean Kinsley try the produce selection of the day on the school’s morning news.
Students are not just adding the food to the shopping list, they are adding it to their lunch tray as well. Leigh says that since the program has started, school cafeteria managers have noticed an increase in children selecting produce for their lunch trays.
Healthy Lessons
The exploration of these new fruits and vegetables also may show up in the classroom that day. Leigh gives an example of a tangerine. For math, the students can make charts on how many seeds their fruit has, or how many students enjoyed the taste. Discussion of the tangerine industry fuels geography, culture and economic lessons. In language arts, the students can learn how to describe the unique flavors and appearances of the produce while in art they can draw it. Perhaps most importantly, the produce’s vitamins and healthy benefits become a relevant science lesson.
You may wonder how the watermelon radish fared at school. “It looks like a watermelon, but it tastes like a radish,” Leigh says. And that, apparently, is still an acquired taste for our kids.
For more information:
www.collier.k12.fl.us/wellness/
www.collierschools.com/FoodService/docs/F2S/Oct2013_F2S_menu.pdf
www.collierschools.com/FoodService/docs/F2S/Oct2013_funfact.pdf
Stacy Nicolau is the Assistant Publisher of Neapolitan Family Magazine and has three children in Collier County public schools.