Grassroots revolution changing our children’s eating habits

Acres Australia      Issue 99    Environment

Grassroots revolution changing our children’s eating habits

WHEN your primary school children come home from school and start asking you to add grocery items such as capsicum, cucumber, celery and eggplant to the weekly shopping list, you may be right in thinking there was some type of revolution going on.

But when they ask you if they could help prepare dinner, and why don’t we start our own veggie garden in the backyard – then  your suspicion will be confirmed.

Yes, there is a grassroots revolution going on and Queensland author and educator Leonie Shanahan is one of the ringleaders.

Leonie is passionate about kids not only eating more healthily but also being more responsible for the growing and preparation of their own healthy food.  Her best-selling book Eat Your Garden is much-sought-after resource and the lady herself is guest speaker at many schools, community centres and festivals across the east coast of Australia.

After many years getting down and getting her hands dirty in vegetable gardens with hundreds of eager primary school children, Leonie has seen the positive results of her work.

It’s a process of osmosis, with the children going home and enthusing their parents and grandparents about the simple pleasures of growing and eating your own healthy food.

“If children grow it, they will eat it,” says Leonie.  And this simple statement is a catchcry for this new food revolution.

“If we all learn to eat the correct food, we will live a long and healthy life, this is especially important for our children who these days are exposed to so many unnatural foods and a cocktail of chemicals,” Leonie said.

“The more variety of fresh foods you introduce to your child’s diet, the better their healthy and that’s what the garden is all about – the most nutritious food for ourselves and especially our children.”

The school gardens developed by Leonie through her ‘Edible School Gardens’ program promotes a blend of organic and Permaculture gardening.

“The Edible School Garden Program is so much more than just growing some veggies.  The edible school garden is a garden where the soil is full of life and the plants are bursting with nutrients and minerals,”  Leonie said.

“We teach the children how to create healthy soils and grow healthy food.  The students eat the food from this garden and it is 100 per cent good for them – real food.

“When you have vibrant, living healthy soil, you have food bursting with health and that is the food that we need our children to eat – food that is going to sustain their young growing bodies and minds.

“It is also an opportunity for children to experience a variety of new foods and flavours”.

“This program empowers children for life with knowledge of how to grow organic food and enjoy it,” Leonie said.

Leonie’s path to the edible school garden began when her first child started school and she saw the types of food children were bringing in their lunch boxes – generally processed and wrapped in plastic.

Where was the fresh fruit or healthy sandwich, she asked.  This was Leonie’s ‘ah-ah’ moment.  She knew then that wheat she had to do to improve children’s eating habits in a proactive way.

With studies in horticulture, Permaculture and organics under her belt, Leonie dared to dream and started the school-based Edible School Gardens program.

In the past 10 years she has set up 20 school gardens, has run Permakids garden workshops at festivals, community gardens and community centres.

At first, Leonie battled for funding to launch the garden project at schools. “Back then people couldn’t see the value in it, gardens weren’t valued especially when schools needed other resources like computers.”

But in the last two years the funding has come on board, particularly through Queensland’s Gambling  Community Benefit Fund which covers gardening tools, a storage shed, materials, equipment and classroom tuition for a 12 month period.

Slow Food Noosa is also a major sponsor and donates $6,000 to sponsor one school per year.

So far the group has sponsored four schools inthe Edible School Gardens Program.

“in 12 months you can work with all seasons, record all the information bout planting, caring for plants, harvesting, seed saving, propagating, composting worm farms and green manure crops.

“We keep a journal and create reference folders so the information is all there for the teachers, parents, grandparents and students to empower them with knowledge and confidence so that they too will become part of the program and use the garden as a living classroom,” Leonie says.

Watching students create a garden from scratch and then eat their spoils is huge gratification for Leonie.

Perhaps her most favourite activity is the school Harvest Festival when students, teachers and parents are treated to a day of delicious foods – all grown from their own school garden and prepared on site with the help of students.  Often, students create their own recipes and salads.

And the most pleasing aspect of the whole Harvest Day process is that there is minimal rubbish and waste at the end of the day.

Meals are served on banana leaves, recyclables are used.

“After one of our Harvest Days we had just one bin of rubbish.” Leonie said. “That, in itself, is remarkable.”

In any one day, at any one primary school, Leonie teaches some 40 different activities to children of all year levels.

A full week’s program can see Leonie teaching up to 500 students.  She tells her students that a seedling is a baby that needs to be nurtured.

“I play lots of games with the children.  I developed compost cards, pollination games.  I’ve got magnifiers so that children can see the different shapes and patterns of plants, seeds,  bugs, compost and soil,” Leonie said.

The “Eat Your Garden” book is a very detailed, easy-to-follow and practical guide to everything you need to create your own edible garden.

It features monthly planting guides; worm farms and worm towers; composting methods; how to build no-dig, tank, pots and theme gardens; nutrition for soils and plants; and the full cycle of planting the seed to seed saving.

For further information about the Edible School Garden program, contact Leonie Shanahan at www.edibleschoolgardens.com.au

Wendy O’Hanlon