KIWIFRUIT. Harvest of the Month. March Is A Kiwi a Bird or a Fruit?

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1 Harvest of the Month 11 March KIWIFRUIT The goal of the Harvest of The Month program is to increase enjoyment & consumption of fruit & vegetables and to motivate students to make healthy choices, by tasting & exploring different fruits & vegetables. Kiwifruit Facts Kiwifruit has the highest level of Vitamin C, Potassium, & Magnesium of any fruit. Actinidia chinesnsis is the scientific name for kiwifruit. Kiwifruit grows on a vine and is pollinated by bees. Kiwifruit is a berry with edible seeds. Each fruit has hundreds of tiny black seeds. You can rub the fuzz off and eat the whole kiwifruit. Growers hasten the ripening of kiwifruit by using ethylene gas. Kiwifruit is also called Kiwi, Chinese Gooseberry and Yang Tao. Why do you think the fruit is named after me? Is A Kiwi a Bird or a Fruit? The kiwi is a flightless bird, native to New Zealand. The kiwi is unusual in two respects. First, it is the only bird in the world that has nostrils on the end of its beak. Second, the female kiwi has the largest egg, in proportion to its body size, of any bird in the world (except perhaps the hummingbird). Kiwis are about the same size as chickens, but their eggs are almost as big as those of an ostrich! The kiwi bird s name comes from the Maori language, and imitates the cry of the male kiwi bird during the mating season. So, remember that the little brown furry bird is a kiwi, and the yummy berry we eat is a kiwifruit! Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Stamp Program, an equal opportunity provider and employer through the California Nutrition Network. For information about the California Food Stamp Program, please call

2 2 Kiwifruit is the most nutrient dense** fruit. It has almost 2 times the Vitamin C of an orange, more potassium than a banana and more Vitamin E than an avocado! It also has high levels of fiber, magnesium and copper. Vitamin C helps heal wounds, bruises, cuts, and burns, and works with Vitamin E to help protect the body from cancer. Magnesium maintains our muscles, nerves, heart and bones. Potassium helps keep our hearts beating regularly. Copper makes our bones strong, our brains grow, and helps us develop a strong immune system. Fiber keeps our digestive system moving and helps prevent certain kinds of disease, such as cancer. Kiwifruit skin is good for you! Two ounces of kiwifruit peel have all the Vitamin C you need for a whole day. **What is Nutrient Dense??? Nutrient density is a calculation frequently used by dietitians to reflect a food s nutritional value. Kiwifruit has been found to be the most nutrient dense of all fruits, followed by the papaya, mango, and orange. Phytochemicals in Kiwifruit: A phytochemical (pronounced fight-o-chemical ) is a compound found in plant foods. They work with nutrients and dietary fiber to protect against many diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cataracts, osteoporosis, and urinary tract infections. "Phyto" is a Greek word that means plant and phytochemicals are usually related to plant pigments. Pigment relates to color. So, fruits and vegetables that are bright colors yellow, orange, red, green, blue, and purple generally contain the most phytochemicals and the most nutrients. Kiwifruit is an excellent source of phytochemicals. There are more than 900 different phytochemicals found in plant foods and more will be discovered. Kiwifruit contains carotenoids, luteins, xanthophylls, chlorophylls, flavonoids and anthocyanins. More research is needed to discover all of the health benefits of the delicious, nutritious kiwifruit!

3 3 COOKING WITH KIWIFRUIT It may look funny on the outside, but inside the kiwifruit is a delicious and healthful treat. How do you eat a Kiwifruit?? First, wash the fruit well. Then, rub off the fuzz and eat, skin and all! Or cut it in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Finally ENJOY! Add kiwifruit to a fruit salad, breakfast cereal, smoothies, peanut butter sandwich or make one of the following delicious recipes: Fruit Kabobs Ingredients Small bite-sized pieces of fruit: kiwifruit, apples, bananas, grapes, melon, oranges, mango Thin pretzel sticks Materials Paper plates for each child Pictures of each fruit so that the child can associate the cut-up fruit with the whole fruit. Objectives To assist in the development of sequencing skills To aid in the development of pre-math skills To build language skills (vocabulary, prepositional concepts, ordinal concepts) Procedure Sort cut up fruit in separate bowls, with the picture next to it. Begin by telling the children what each fruit is and some facts about it. Encourage the children to share knowledge about the fruit. Ask them if they have tried it before and what they liked or disliked about it. Have the child choose a piece of fruit and place it on a pretzel stick. Ask the children if they can identify the one they selected. Let the child choose more fruit and place the pieces on their pretzel sticks. Continue until the stick is full. Talk to the children about which fruit they picked first, second, third and so on, also having them identify which piece is in the middle and which is last. Ask the children which fruit tasted best to them. A variation of this activity would be to follow a teacher-made pattern card with fruit or colored stickers to indicate which fruit to place on the stick first, second, and so on. Let the children share with the group their favorite pattern. Kiwi Popsicle Kiwifruit skin is good for you and feels similar to peach skin when it is eaten. Many of the nutrients in kiwifruit are in the peel. Bite right in! It is also okay to peel the kiwifruit before popsicle-izing it. Cut the ends off of a kiwifruit. Push a Popsicle stick into the end of the fruit. Enjoy as is or freeze for 2 hours and enjoy a frozen delight!

4 4 KIWIFRUIT ACROSS THE CURRICULA Kiwifruit Math Estimation and Computation Have students estimate the number of seeds in one kiwifruit. Cut your kiwifruit into quarters or eighths. Divide students into groups to count the seeds. Give each student a section of kiwifruit, a toothpick and a paper plate or paper towel. Total the amount from each group to find out how many seeds are in one kiwifruit. You will be surprised!! Symmetry Cut a kiwifruit in half. Is it symmetrical or asymmetrical? What kind of pattern would you call it? Science Explorations How to Grow a Kiwifruit A single kiwifruit will provide you with hundreds of seeds. Remove all the pulp from the seeds or they may become moldy when you plant them. Use your fingers and paper towels to clean them off. Kiwifruit seeds must be chilled. Keep the seeds in the fridge for about 6 weeks and keep them moist on a paper towel check it at least once a week. Place a layer of stones in the bottom of a pot and fill the pot with potting soil. Gently pack down the soil to remove any air pockets. Place a few seeds in the pot and barely cover with soil. Cover the pot with clear plastic bag or a piece of plastic wrap and place in a sunny location. Remove the bag in a few weeks when you see the sprouts. Float or Sink Materials A variety of fruit and vegetables including kiwifruit A large tub of water A large piece of paper to make a chart and a marker Objectives To discover which items will sink and which will float To provide opportunities to predict which item will sink or float To gain practice in charting results Procedures Ask the children to identify the various fruit and vegetables. Ask them to hold them and encourage them to tell you if the items are heavy or light. Try to let all the children feel each item and get a consensus as to whether that fruit or vegetable will sink or float. Mark the children's predictions down on paper. Have the children place the items in the water tub one at a time. Ask the children what happened, and then note it on paper. Count how many predictions were correct. See if they can formulate a guess as to why some float while others sink. Write their words on paper and post it in the classroom.

5 5 History of the Kiwifruit The 800-year history of the California Kiwifruit is interesting and colorful like the kiwifruit itself! The timeline below follows the kiwifruit's path from its wild roots in China to the produce section of your neighborhood supermarket AD Kiwifruit grew wild in the Chang Kiang Valley of China. The fruit was called Yang Tao. It was considered a delicacy by the great Khans who relished the fruit's brilliant flavor and emerald-green color. 1800s AD Foreign travelers to China tasted the Yang Tao and became interested in the fruit AD A collector from the Royal Horticultural Society of Britain sent samples of the fruit home in AD Another collector sent seeds to England in AD Kiwifruit (then known as "Chinese Gooseberries" or "Yang Tao") plants were first exported to New Zealand and then to the United States AD Agricultural testing of the kiwifruit began in the United States AD Carl Heinke was the first commercial grower of California kiwifruit. He planted nine Chinese Gooseberry vines next to his grape vines in Paradise, California. His friend, Bob Smith was doing research on the plants to determine the potential for commercial production of the Chinese Gooseberries in California AD New Zealand was already exporting kiwifruit to the U.S. while Heinke was planting the vines. New Zealand kiwifruit was first served at Trader Vic's restaurant in San Francisco AD A customer at a neighborhood Safeway store heard about Chinese Gooseberries (kiwifruit) and asked the produce manager at the supermarket if they were available. Never having heard of the fruit, the manager contacted produce dealer Frieda Caplan. Although she was unfamiliar with the exotic fruit at the time, Caplan began importing New Zealand kiwifruit in AD Smith gave kiwifruit seeds to George Tanimoto in Gridley, California. Tanimoto planted the seeds in a nursery AD Tanimoto transferred the resulting vines to an acre of land in his vineyard AD Tanimoto s kiwifruit harvest yielded 1,200 pounds of fruit. California kiwifruit found its way into the U.S. market in 1970 when Caplan's company, Frieda's Fresh Produce, purchased Tanimoto's entire harvest AD Today, approximately 8,000 acres are devoted to the production of kiwifruit in the United States. California produces 95 percent of all kiwifruit grown in the U.S.

6 Vocabulary Builder 6 delicacy a special food/treat relished enjoyed foreign from another country Horticultural Society a group that studies plants exported to send something to another country for purchase agricultural testing testing a plant to see how easy it is to grow as a crop on a farm commercial having to do with selling something potential possible, it could happen production to grow or make something produce dealer someone who buys fruit and vegetables and sells them to stores or restaurants exotic unusual, not something you see every day importing to bring something into the United States from another country for sale nursery a place where plants are grown and sold transferred to move from one place to another acre a measurement of land used by farmers (43,650 square feet) vineyard an area of land where grapes are grown Can you answer the following questions: 1. What was the name of the kiwifruit before it was called kiwifruit? 2. From which country did the kiwifruit originally come? 3. Approximately what percent of the kiwifruit grown in the U.S. is grown in California? 4. How did Safeway supermarket help to bring kiwifruit to the U.S.? 5. Read the following sentence: Tanimoto planted the vines and after 2 years his kiwifruit harvest yielded 1,200 pounds of fruit. What is the meaning of the words harvest and yielded.