For four Saturday afternoons in March (National Nutrition Month), Westbury Community Garden hosted a nutrition education expo and celebration of growing, cooking and eating more vegetables in the June Holly Outdoor Learning Pavilion at the garden.
Members, neighbors and friends of WCG were encouraged to get the Recipe 4 Success Foundation’s phone app to keep track of vegetables eaten during the month of March.
The RFS phone app is available here. The “Challenge” is to eat 30 different vegetables in 30 days. Most gardeners have no trouble at all eating 30 different vegetables; in fact some logged more than 40 and some hit 50.
Participants who attended each of the 3 days with vegetables to taste, ate 36 different veggies, if they tasted all the offerings.
Each of the events for first three weeks in March featured
- a mini-science lesson for kids
- three nutrition-themed posters with interactive displays
- 4 – 6 vegetable preparations for sampling
The tasting menus had a theme each Saturday. The first week featured spiralized vegetables, “Oodles of Zoodles.” The second week was “Veggies ‘Round The World” featuring food from India, Mexico, West Africa and Japan. On week three, we sampled a variety of new twists on familiar veggies including the under-rated parsnip and pesto sauce with peas added to boost the protein. Printed recipes were available at the events but there were many requests to put them online. See related post.
Eat The Rainbow
Sharpstown High School’s National Honor Students volunteered each and every Saturday. Their help in setup, cleanup and everything in between was appreciated so much!
Visitors learned how much sugar is in common processed foods.
WCG member, Laura, teaches kids about all the parts of a plant that we eat.
WCG member, Dr. Gao, gave a presentation on Obesity and Disease. We in the US need to get the sugar out of our diets and maintain healthy Body Mass Index.
There are many health risks associated with sugar, inflammation and obesity.
Nopalito tacos, Indian flatbread stuffed with spicy cauliflower, nori rolls and peanut sweet potato soup were a hit on International day.
Spiralized vegetables — fun shapes are more fun to eat!