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In an effort to teach kids the benefits of healthier eating, Baltimore City Public Schools have implemented Meatless Mondays. Food served in school cafeterias on these days is strictly vegetarian.

"The goal of the Meatless Monday campaign is to introduce consumers to meals that can reduce their carbon footprint and improve their health," Virginia Messina reported in her Oct. 4 Seattle Vegan Examiner article. "Tony Geraci, director of the school systems Food and Nutrition Department said the program is meant to inspire people to understand that there are other meal options than just meat and potatoes."

The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future has recognized the Baltimore City Public Schools as the first school system in the U.S. to observe Meatless Mondays  a campaign that was initiated by Johns Hopkins back in 2003, Messina reported.

Labels: schools, vegetables, lunches, vegetarian

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Restricting access to snack foods in schools leads children to eat slightly increased amounts of vegetables and fruits, according to a new study from the University of South Carolina.

Wendy Gonzalez analyzed data from 10,285 fifth graders at 2,065 schools. Those schools that restricted the availability of snacks such as ice cream, baked goods, and candy had a 21% increased consumption of vegetables and a 15% increase for fruits.

Gonzalez, writing in the Journal of Nutrition, said that restricting availability of snacks is a better policy than limiting the number or types of snacks at schools.

Labels: vegetables, junk_food, snacks

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If you ask kids what they want to eat, or for a snack, few will say "vegetables". Yet they're an important part of a growing child's diet. They're also a great way to add more flavor and less calories to some kid-favorite dishes.

"The researchers [at Penn State College of Health and Human Development] developed two variations of pasta, and served the dishes to 61 children between the ages of 3-5 on different occasions to conduct their research."

One dish was a standard pasta dish, while the other had 25% less calories and a pasta sauce that included blended vegetables. The children who sampled the dishes showed no clear preference. Read more at NSTA.org.

Children and teenagers can make poor choices when it comes to diet and other things they put in their bodies. If you are dealing with teen drug and alcohol abuse, visit Adolescent-Substance-Abuse.com for help and learn the sigs of teen drug use.

Labels: nutrition, healthy_eating, vegetables

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Researchers from the Mahidol University in Bangkok were able to convince a group of kindergarteners to double the amounts and kinds of vegetables they ate during school lunches.

Among the techniques used on the 26 participants ages four and five years old were to have them plant vegetable seeds, take part in vegetable-tasting parties, prepare vegetable dishes, sit down and eat vegetables with the children, and show them cartoon characters like Popeye who enjoy vegetables.

This study appears in the journal Nutrition and Dietetics.
 

Labels: nutrition, vegetables

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment