Getting healthy, nutritious foods to California students isn’t easy. First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom is making it her priority issue.
It’s Monday afternoon, and the kids at Elder Creek Elementary School are heading into their last classroom of the day: the cafeteria.
Today’s lesson? Eating foods that are in-season and local.
The class is part of a series run by the Sacramento Food Literacy Center to teach kids about healthy eating. In this lesson, they puzzle out that “local” means Sacramento, or California, before turning to why it might be good to eat in-season and local.
“Have you ever had a peach in summer?” one green-aproned teacher asks. “What did it taste like?”
Heads go up and down and hands fly toward the ceiling.
“Sweet and juicy!” one student says.
“That’s because you’re eating a peach in-season,” the teacher explains. “It’s going to taste really good and it’s going to be cheaper.”
The kids fill the room with a drumroll to introduce the produce of the week: arugula, which receives mixed reactions. An entire table gives a collective shake of the head when asked if they want to try it, but hands shoot up at another table when a volunteer asks, “Who wants a big leaf?”