|
|
(HealthNewsDigest.com) – If kids know anything about fruits and vegetables, it is that they should eat them because “they’re good for you.” If parents know anything about fruits and vegetables, it is that health doesn’t sell.
But what if kids grow up relating to these important foods in more novel ways? For example, it is well accepted that children have more interest in foods if they have a hand in preparing them. And what if they have also grown them? Or used them to make invisible ink or greeting cards? Or they were the words that taught them the ABCs? These activities and a lot more are what David Goldbeck encourages and makes easy in the book he created with the help of children’s entertainer Steve Charney, The ABC’s of Fruits & Vegetables and Beyond (Ceres Press, $16.95)
If you are looking for ways to entice children to put these foods to mouth, you may want to heed Goldbeck’s advice.
The ABCs: Learning to read and eat better at the same time
Steve Charney’s clever poems in the first half of The ABC’s of Fruits & Vegetables and Beyond offer a new and fun-filled opportunity to teach reading while introducing these key foods at an early age. Best of all – everyone will enjoy reading (and saying) lines like:
“C is for the carrots that rabbits like to munch…”
“Appreciate the D for date, a desert fruit found in Kuwait…”
Grapes “hang in bunches, that’s their trick to make them easier to pick.”
And learning why “not to eat green peas on the rolling seas;” what “Russians really relish when they’re famished;” and why “Einstein, Newton, Marx and Plato [say] a yam is NOT a sweet potato!”
Going Beyond the ABCs
Discover true food facts that amaze and fascinate.
As kids grow, learning some other aspects of fruits and vegetables, (in addition to growing and cooking) keeps them engaged. Thus, in the second half the book, kids begin to move beyond the ABCs and become interested for other reasons. Eventually, they can entertain themselves and others with their fruit and vegetable expertise. Discover:
The record for the longest single unbroken apple peel (155 feet)
The world’s tallest herb plant (banana)
What vegetable can grow to 3 feet long and weigh 100 pounds (radish)
How big is BIG when it comes to watermelons (268.8 feet)
How some people “celebrate” zucchinis. From the “Z” page: Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night. Zucchini grows very easily and gardeners often end up with too many. Because of this, a man named Thomas Roy created a holiday on August 8th where people find nice ways to give away their extra zucchini. Sometimes they sneak (leave) them onto neighbors’ porches or into their cars.
Travel the world with Goldbeck and Charney to discover where many foods come from.
View maps that show where many fruits and vegetables were first found and now grow
Discover some fruits from far-off lands, like kiwis, dates, Ugli®, and mangoes
Visit an online garden to see vanilla growing and learn to say vanilla in 52 languages
Learn about fruits and vegetables that grow in the wild
Learn how to pronounce “jicama” ( a root vegetable poplar in Mexico) and other Spanish words that begin with “J”
Learn to select and grow fruits and vegetables.
People are often disappointed by the taste of fruits and vegetables because they don’t know how to select, store and prepare them. Discover:
How to choose the various featured fruits and vegetables
How to ripen fruit at home
New varieties of familiar foods like apples, bananas, tomatoes, and squash
Unfamiliar foods like kiwi, quince, white eggplant, and mangoes
Where to buy organic food by mail
How to sprout seeds and grow herbs
Learn to prepare fruits and vegetables in kid-friendly ways.
One of the best ways to get kids to eat well is to encourage them to cook. With the forty-three recipes created by nutritionist Nikki Goldbeck, kids can help make such delicacies as:
Monkeys in a Blanket
Great Frozen Grapes
Smashed Spud Soup
Real Fresh Lemonade
Your Own Pita Pizza
Z’s Mystery Cake
Expose kids to fruits and vegetables in novel ways.
Research shows that a minimum of three exposures may be needed before kids become comfortable with new foods. Along with eating them, kids learn to make:
Food-based remarks, such as “top banana” and “hot potato”
Lemon juice furniture polish
Herb greeting cards
Potato Stamps
Corny kids’ jokes, riddles and tricks. From the “A” page:
Q: How do you know that an elephant has been in your refrigerator?
A: There are footprints in the applesauce.
There are many more ways to attract children to read about fruits and vegetables, talk about them, joke about them, recite poems about them, and even eat them. They are found in The ABC’s of Fruits & Vegetables and Beyond.
For parents, grandparents, educators, and anyone else who wants to see kids develop an easy-going attitude toward food, “The ABC’s of Fruits & Vegetables and Beyond” provides an excellent framework in a beautifully designed book that’s simply fun to look at. (See pages online at http://www.healthyhighways.com/kc/index.htm)
http://www.healthyhighways.com
###
For advertising and promotion on HealthNewsDigest.com please contact Mike McCurdy: [email protected] or 877-634-9180
HealthNewsDigest.com is syndicated worldwide and has over 8,000 journalists as subscribers.