Wellness Wakeup Call Newsletter for 6-12 Year 3, Month #4: New & Exciting Foods

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1 : Nutrition Education Messages in Easy to Digest Sound Bites Schools: Read one message over the loudspeaker each day during morning announcements or just before the first lunch period for maximum effect. Determine how many school days there are in the month and double up on some messages in order to get through all messages in the month. You can download this document from and place it or links to it on your website, in district newsletters, PTA/PTO newsletters, hang it on bulletin boards, or in other ways promote these messages. There are other ways that these messages may be used. If your school does not have a PA system the messages may be read by teachers in the classroom. Feel free to find other ways to creatively use these messages. Parents: Your child will be listening to these messages in school each day. Please help to reinforce these messages at home. You might even learn something, too! Then on the last page you will find an easy and healthy recipe. We encourage you to try it. Preparing healthy food with your child can be a fun way to spend time together and to reinforce healthy eating habits. Each day, start the message with: Good morning, this is your! 1. This month we are going to learn about new and exciting types of foods. Apples and oranges aren t the only foods that are good for you. Speaking of apples, did you know that over 100 different kinds of apples including red, yellow, green, and black are grown in the United States? Trying new, healthy foods is not only good for you, but fun! Different foods have different nutrients, which is why it is recommended to eat a variety of foods and colors. 2. Sometimes when you try a new food, you might think you don t like it at first. But don t give up! Many fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices can take up to twelve tries before we realize that we actually do like them. You can always prepare or cook them differently, try them with different foods or try another type of the same food. 3. What is the worst name you can think of for a fruit? How about Ugli fruit? There is a fruit called Ugli that comes from Jamaica that is a type of tangelo. The skin is rough and wrinkled, but inside is a sweet fruit that is a cross between an orange, a tangerine, and a grapefruit. Don t judge a fruit by its name! Next time you are in the store look for an Ugli fruit and give it a try. 4. The Ugli fruit may have a bad name, but the Durian fruit from Asia has a very bad smell. However, it has a creamy delicious flavor and tastes a little like pudding. It also has a very pointy and strange looking hard shell that could hurt your fingers. Some hotels do not allow this fruit because of its smell. But if you ever get a chance to try it, remember that even though it smells bad, it tastes really good! 5. Pomegranates are red, baseball-sized fruits with a hard outer shell. The inside is filled with tiny pockets of juicy seeds that look like bright red teeth. The insides are so healthy that scientists study them to see how they make our hearts stronger, and how they may prevent certain kinds of cancer. Drinking pomegranate juice can be good for you, but it is always better to eat the whole fruit than to only drink the juice, because drinking juice makes it too easy to get too many calories. (Continued on page 2)

2 Each day, start the message with: Good morning, this is your! 6. Fresh cherries are sweet and fun to eat. Like all whole foods from plants, they contain fiber, which keep us from getting constipated, keep our heart healthy and our blood flowing smoothly. And tart cherries can actually help people who have pain they have anti-inflammatory properties; it s like nature s medicine! 7. There s a type of pear called Asian pear - it s crispy like an apple, but is yellow and tastes like a cross between and apple and a pear. It s super juicy, crisp, and sweet, and a great choice for a healthy snack because one Asian pear has only about 50 calories, but 4 grams of fiber to fill you up. Even though they are called Asian pears, they can grow right here in New York State (or the United States)! Be adventurous! Trying new foods can be a fun way to learn about what people in other cultures eat. 8. Most fruits are eaten when very ripe as sweet snacks. But a special fruit from south Asia called Jackfruit can be chopped up before it is ripe and cooked with onions and garlic as the main part of a meal. Some Thai restaurants even offer this on their menu. Jackfruits grow on trees and can weigh as much as 80 pounds. In some parts of the world a Jackfruit is baked in strips as a form of healthy chips. 9. Figs are a tasty fruit that look like giant purple rain drops. There is a popular type of cookie that has fig filling, but they have more sugar in the filling than figs! For a real treat, find a fresh fig and eat it raw. There are fig trees in many parts of the United States and people may not even know that the fruit on their tree is edible and delicious. Sometimes you can find fresh figs in the grocery store, and you can also buy and eat dried figs. 10. There s an unusual-looking fruit that grows on a cactus whose flowers bloom at night. The flowers emit a fragrant smell that attracts bats and moths to pollinate it. It is named after a giant mythical creature. It is the Dragon Fruit! Red with green pointy leaves, this fruit grows in hot, dry places like deserts and it is great to eat if you are thirsty, because it is 90% water! Its fruit is sweet and nutritious. If you ever have a chance to try a Dragon Fruit, it will be a fun experience! 11. Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-WA) is a grainlike food that is eaten like rice or pasta. It s special because it is high in protein, calcium and other minerals like zinc. It also tastes nutty! It is actually a tiny little seed and one serving has almost twice as much iron as a serving of red meat. 12. Millet is a yummy little grain that looks just like bird seed. That's because it IS used in birdseed! It is also called a "staple" grain - which means it is something people use a lot of. They use it in many parts of the world, including Africa, India and Russia. 13. (Yesterday s or Friday s) Wellness Wakeup announcement, explained that staple means something people use a lot of. One staple grain is rice. More people in the world eat rice every day than any other food. There are thousands of types of rice! A tasty one is called Basmati- when it (Continued on page 3)

3 Each day, start the message with: Good morning, this is your! cooks it smells like popcorn. You probably know about WHITE rice, but rice comes in all different colors: brown, black, red, purple, and yellow! They are much healthier than white rice because they are whole grain. Whole grains contain more fiber, protein and nutrients than refined, white grains. Why not see how many different colors of rice you can try? 14. Sweet potatoes are creamy and sweet and they make a meal delicious! Like other orange vegetables, they are good for your eyes because they are a great source of vitamin A.. All the other potatoes white, purple, yellow, and red potatoes are actually in a different family from sweet potatoes. 15. Leafy greens are the healthiest foods on the planet because they are full of minerals like iron, calcium and zinc. Maybe you have heard of spinach, but another type of leafy green is kale. Some types of kale have curly leaves and some have less curly leaves. Kale comes in green, purple, and red, and there is even a type of kale called Dinosaur kale, but all of them help our bones and our bodies, be strong. One great way to eat kale is to drink it in a smoothie! Another great way is to make kale chips, either in the oven or in a dehydrator. These kale recipes are on the back of the Wellness Wakeup Messages this month. 16. Jicama (pronounced HICK-uh-MA)is a brown root vegetable with white insides. A Root vegetable means that you eat the part that grows underground. You can eat jicama raw, and it is sweet, juicy, and crunchy. You can eat it in a salad or just plain. See if the store where you shop has jicama, and if so you are in for a real treat! 17. Have you ever tried beets? They re a vegetable that is grown underground that you can eat raw. The most common type of beets are bright reddish purple and they turn your fingers pink, and everything you cook with them purple! Beets also come in yellow and orange, which do not stain everything the way red beets do. Eating colorful vegetables is a way to stay healthy and get sick less often. Raw shredded beats that are peeled first taste great on a salad. Raw thinly sliced beats are a delicious snack, and you can hold them up to the window or to a light to see a beautiful pattern. Believe it or not, white sugar can be made from either beats OR sugarcane, so that explains beets sweet, delicious flavor. 18. From a far-off magical land comes a bean with a magical name: garbanzos! Garbanzo beans are one of the earliest cultivated foods 7,500 year old remains have been found in the Middle East! The tan colored beans are used in salads, soups, and stews. They are also called Chick Peas and may be most commonly known for their starring role in a popular bean spread called Hummus. Like other beans they are high in protein and easy to cook! Have you ever had garbanzo beans or hummus? Try some today! 19. Tempeh is a type of Indonesian food developed thousands of years ago. It is made from fermented soybeans, which have super nutritional powers. In parts of Asia, tempeh is used instead of meat. Tempeh is high in protein, and is best marinated in a flavored sauce to give it a great taste.

4 Each day, start the message with: Good morning, this is your! 20. A very special bean called Jacob s Cattle Beans looks like a white kidney bean with spots that look a little like a cow s markings. It is a little bit sweet and great in soups. Like other beans they are good to eat as a main dish recipe and are a lot healthier than a hamburger. 21. Spices are added to foods to give them different flavors. A popular spice is a seed called cumin. Cumin seeds look like tiny pieces of rice and give beans and vegetables a delicious flavor. Sometimes it is used as the seed and sometimes it is ground to a fine powder. Cumin is used around the world in places like Mexico and India, and it is one of the spices in Indian curries. It can even be used to make a tea that helps you digest your food better. You can make homemade healthy fries by mixing a little olive oil and cumin together, and tossing sliced sweet potatoes in them. Then cook them in the oven instead of frying them. Cooking at home is a great way to learn about new types of foods. 22. Turmeric is used as a seasoning and also to color other spices and foods yellow. But it is a natural color from nature, not one made in a factory. If you have ever eaten mustard, you have eaten turmeric. It is also one of the spices used in Indian curries. But turmeric is more than a coloring and a seasoning; it is also used to help people who have stomach aches. And it may help prevent cancer. During marriage celebrations in India and some other countries, turmeric is used to stain people s skin, and is said to help skin, which is why it is in some skin creams and sunscreens. What an amazing plant! Encourage students to explore new foods! There is a whole world of interesting foods waiting to be discovered! Research shows that if students grow food and prepare it, they will eat it! Growing and preparing food together is a great way to spend time with your child.

5 Recipe of the Month Super Easy Kale Chips Kale can be used many ways including soups, salads, sautés, smoothies, and can even be baked to make kale chips. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Separate and wash kale leaves. Cut the stems about one inch from the bottom of the leaves. Spray each leaf lightly with cooking spray. Lightly season with salt and pepper. Place kale leaves directly onto oven racks, leaving small spaces between them. Bake for 7-10 minutes until crisp. These chips make a great side when served with a veggie burger or as an appetizer with a light dipping sauce. They also make a great snack all by themselves! Kale Smoothie The NY Coalition for Healthy School Food has served kale smoothies to thousands of students, and more than 99% of the students love them! Here are two versions: Superhero Smoothie 1 cup unsweetened pineapple juice (buy in bottle, not can) 3 leaves of kale, washed and tear leaf off stems 4 or 5 ice cubes (omit if you have a high power blender like Blendtec or Vitamix) 1 or 2 frozen bananas (peel first, then freeze in reusable container) Place juice and kale in blender with ice cubes. Blend till pureed, and no pieces of kale are visible. Add frozen bananas and puree. Go Green Smoothie 1 cup unsweetened soymilk OR 10 walnut halves (or 10 almonds) and 1 cup water 1 apple OR pear, cut off core, OR 1 orange, peeled and divided in half 4-6 leaves of kale, washed and tear leaf off stems 4 or 5 ice cubes (omit if you have a high power blender like Blendtec or Vitamix) 1 or 2 frozen bananas (peel first, then freeze in reusable container) Place soymilk OR nuts and water in blender and puree. Add apple, pear, or orange, kale, and ice cubes and puree until smooth. Add frozen bananas and puree. New York Coalition for Healthy School Food (NYCHSF). This information was produced by Dina Aronson, MS, RD, Vesanto Melina, MS, RD, and/or Matt Ruscigno, MPH, RD unless otherwise noted for educational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice for any specific condition. We encourage you to copy and distribute this newsletter in full. The use of any part of this newsletter, including recipes, must be credited as follows: Information from New York Coalition for Healthy School Food ( You must also credit recipes by listing the source and author as given. This information and more can be found at