Growing a Little Vegetable Love
It’s an age-old dilemma for parents and caregivers: how to get kids to eat their vegetables. Amanda Adams, program director for the Vancouver-based, non-profit organization Growing Chefs! believes she has the answer. She often recites the story of a little girl who didn’t like broccoli. It was green and wasn’t pretty like the flowers that covered her backpack and pencil case. While taking part in a Growing Chefs! classroom-based learning program, she discovered that broccoli, even though it was green, was a flower too. From that moment on she was happy eating the green florets. This, according to Adams, is the organization’s superpower. Kids who never used to eat or like vegetables do after Growing Chefs! visits their school.
Spreading the word
It all started when Merri Schwartz, a professional pastry chef, realized a lot of knowledge about food sustainability, nutrition and local agriculture used by chefs every day in restaurant kitchens wasn’t reaching the broader community where it could be used to enhance healthy eating habits. She decided to change that, and approached an elementary school, asking if, along with a few friends, she could plant a windowsill garden and teach kids about nutrition and give them basic cooking skills. In 2006, Growing Chefs! Classroom Gardening Program was piloted in two Vancouver elementary school classrooms.
Schwartz’s idea took off. A sister program now operates in Victoria and a version of the original model has sprung up in London, Ont. Since its conception in Metro Vancouver, the organization has worked with more than 1,820 volunteers, planted 442 gardens and taught 11,200 children from kindergarten through Grade 7 how to cook. Too many kids don’t know where food comes from or have access to healthy, whole food. Working with children just makes sense, Adams says, as their relationship with food has not yet fully formed and their attitudes towards it are less rigid than those of adults.
Doing it on their own
Research proves hands-on experiences that allow for self- discovery and engage all five senses: smell, taste, touch, sight and sound, improve learning, particularly for younger ages. So, this is what Growing Chefs! lets children do. After teachers register their classes, volunteers engage their elementary school students in the seed-to-plate reality of food, showing up every two weeks for three and a half months. During their first classroom visit, volunteers help students plant an indoor windowsill vegetable garden, illustrating that even if you live in a small urban apartment or townhouse with no outdoor space, you can still grow nutritious and interesting food. Students dig in the dirt, plant pole beans, radishes, herbs and diverse green stuff. Arugula, chard and kale all find homes on the windowsill.
Lesson plans align with B.C.’s provincial curriculum and include activities focused on urban agriculture, garden crafts and foods from around the world. Adams believes food is a universal language that can be used to teach anything. In the Grade 4 to 7 program, students not only learn about growing food from seed, but also use basic math and science to track the growth of their gardens.
The goal is not to cajole kids into eating their Brussels sprouts, but to seed awareness about healthy food choices. And it works. Students experience the taste of fresh uncooked spinach and feel the difference in texture between a smooth bok choy leaf compared to the curly edges of a head of kale. It’s a tactile experience that becomes even more exciting when volunteers teach basic cooking skills that turn peas harvested from the windowsill into a soup the whole class can enjoy.
Adams says kids will go home, share the experience with their families and insist on having vegetables for dinner instead of eating nothing but pepperoni pizza.
Helping out
Growing Chefs! relies on its volunteers. Launched to educate the wider community, the organization also wanted to remind chefs that what they do matters. Working in the food industry often means long days, strange shifts and working alone to prep food and hone recipes after a restaurant closes. The passion for their craft sustains those hours for chefs and Growing Chefs! has created an outlet for those in the food industry to share their enthusiasm about food and make a difference while doing it.
Since 2017, Leah Katz, who has a background in food design, has been volunteering with Growing Chefs!
She says it’s not only about being able to share her passion, but also engaging kids to take ownership of what they eat. During a lesson on weird and wacky vegetables, she recalls how one student exclaimed in a loud voice that kohlrabi was “OMG delicious” after trying it for the first time. It’s that “aha” moment, Katz says, when she sees vegetables go from dreary to delicious for children that makes volunteering worthwhile.
Because it’s not a parent or teacher telling students what they can or cannot do or eat, Growing Chefs! clicks with kids. Rather, it’s someone with real-world experience about food, nutrition and even gardening that makes it relatable for students, Adams says.
Sharing the harvest
The organization has continued expanding through the LunchLAB initiative. Twice a week throughout the school term, small groups of students sign-up to work with teachers and chefs-in-residence at Lord Roberts Elementary and Total Education secondary school program in Vancouver. The cohorts work in collaboration with Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society and its high school-based program to grow their own food, create a menu for the group just as a real chef would and learn how to follow a food budget.
Grants from the City of Vancouver, Vancouver School Board and corporate donors such as TELUS make it possible for Growing Chefs! to finance the program. There’s always a fresh seasonal salad bar and hot menu item.
The mission of Growing Chefs! remains true to its roots (the figurative ones): Connect chefs and those in the food industry with kids and communities to foster systemic change towards healthy, sustainable and just food practices. While crafting a chickpea curry, ramen or lasagna, students learn about nutrition, make healthy food choices, develop friendships and get to enjoy new flavours. Most important, they discover vegetables really are fun after all.
Growing Chefs!
500-610 Main St., Vancouver, B.C.
growingchefs.ca | 778.885.1308 | @growingchefs
