Turning Picky Eaters Into Wholesome Chefs

As schools grapple with ways to make their lunches healthier, they face another challenge: getting kids to eat them.

Here & Now resident chef Kathy Gunst is trying to change the attitudes kids have about food. After joining First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign in 2010, Gunst teamed up with Central School in her hometown of South Berwick, Maine.

“In June 2010, I went to the White House, and Michelle Obama said everyone will say no to you,” Gunst said. “But I went to the principal, and she said, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’”

Gunst launched a program at Central School where she teaches kindergarten through third grade students how to prepare healthy snacks and meals. She believes it’s essential to win them over at an early age. But she has her work cut out for her.

Central School cafeteria manager, Kim Clemente, said the students here fit the national stereotype: they go crazy for chicken nuggets and pizza.

A recent sampling of student lunches turned up a mix of healthy meals like pasta, salad and fruit. But plenty of kids were also subsisting off Goldfish crackers, Pop Tarts and Rice Krispee treats.

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Clemente said since Gunst started working with students, they have made some healthy changes at the school, with varied degrees of success.

“We went from breaded chicken patties to chicken fillet that’s not breaded, and they’re not too happy about that. But that’s what we’re serving now: whole grains. They love fresh fruit,” Clemente said. “But yeah, that’s what they mainly like, pizza!”

The Next Top Chefs
Over the past two years, Gunst has taught a class with every single student at Central School.

Recently, she introduced them to kale chips and fruit smoothies (see recipes below).

Many students said they had never tried kale before, and they were apprehensive about trying the leafy, green produce.

“Most kids when I said turnips, they said, ‘Uck.’ When I said kale, they said, ‘What’s that?’ And that was the whole point – to get them thinking about new things,” Gunst said.

And Gunst said that getting kids familiar with the foods will help change attitudes.

“It’s really important that kids feel the kitchen is a friendly place, that it’s not just a place where you take a frozen dinner out of the freezer and pop it into a microwave. It’s important for kids to have the sensory experience of touching food and chopping it, and watching how it changes when you’re cooking it,” Gunst said.

After spending an afternoon making fruit smoothies and kale chips, most kids were won over. They all seemed to enjoy the foods, but they weren’t ready to abandon their Doritos and Pringles just yet.

“They had kale chips once and Pringles most of their lives,” Gunst said. “They see Pringles on TV. You know most of where kids form their opinions about what’s going to taste good happens on TV commercials, and it’s really a kind of brainwashing.”

Educating Parents
Central School principal Vicky Stewart said the students are helping to educate parents.

“Even parents are saying, ‘Kale? What’s kale?’ And their children can tell them,” Stewart said.

Third grader Cadence said she had never tried kale before, but she hopes to eat it at home.

“I am going to ask my parents if we can buy some kale and try some new experiences,” Cadence said.

Kale Chips

A bunch of dinosaur kale
Olive oil
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Hold the thick end of the kale stem with one hand and run the pinched fingers of your other hand along the stem, stripping the leaf away.
Tear the leaves into bite-size pieces or leave them in strips for larger chips.
Brush both sides of the each piece with a little bit of olive oil, or toss them with oil directly on your baking tray. With clean hands.
Sprinkle the kale with salt and toss again. Wash your oily hands when you are finished.

Place the pieces of kale in a single layer on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 2 to 14 minutes or until crisp.

Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. Makes 2 cups.

Fruit Smoothie

1 banana
Apple slices
1/2 cup strawberries
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
3/4 cup orange juoce

Put the whole concoction in the blender and blend until smooth. If it’s too thick, add more orange juice. Too sour, add apple slices or pineapple. Experiment!

Recipes from (or inspired by) “The Whole Family Cookbook” by Michelle Stern

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

htcs10

can you do the same thing with spinach?
- klicker
  
  I would guess not. Kale is a much sturdier green than spinach.
- Kathy
  
  No spinach has too high a water content.
NWP

Although this article was encouraging, it is important to point out that the fault for so many “picky eaters” falls on the parents. Children do not drive to the supermarket and buy the food; adults do. If we give kids crap such as Pop Tarts and Doritos, that is what they are going to develop a taste for. My children, now 13 and 15 years old, eat just about anything (each has likes and dislikes for sure). They were always presented with fresh, healthy choices. If they didn’t like what was offered, they could have bowl of cereal or make a sandwich. Their taste for vegetables and fruit didn’t develop overnight; it was a conscious effort on our part not to let their I-don’t-like-kale attitude get in the way of healthful eating. (In fact, of all vegetables, kale is their least favorite. ) Having them help in the kitchen might have also helped develop their palate, but I think it was more the fact that we cook and serve “whole foods” in the home.

When they ate McDonald’s for the first time, they both thought it was one of the nastiest things they had ever eaten; same went for Doritos. If they do eat chips, it tends to be brands that have three ingredients: potatoes, oil and salt.
Saera

I’d like to disagree with one comment made by the guest that children determine their likes and dislikes largely by what they see on television commercials. My children have seen almost no television commercials ever, and by the time they were young toddlers they had developed a clear (normal!) preference for sweet or fatty high-calorie foods. That’s not to say we have allowed them to eat these foods exclusively, but as a parent it is obvious to me that my children’s tastes (each of them distinct, by the way) appeared very early, before they saw any television or had peers to watch or anything. Why would it not make sense for growing children to exhibit an evolutionary adaptation for high-calorie foods? Mine, by the way, are active and slim/normal weight.
townie1952

Our daughter was never a picky eater, but a discriminating one. She was never forced to eat or try anything. New foods were introduced at family meals, but until she asked to try the new food, it was not served to her. Sometimes she wanted to try it the first time, sometimes it was on the menu several times before she became curious enough to give it a shot. She preferred vegetable soup for breakfast over cereals, so that is what she ate. Kale soup was one of her favorites. As she grew up she tried foods that I have not tried to this date (oysters on the half shell, snails).�
Children will not starve themselves until you feed them junk food. If they don’t like the healthy food the rest of the family is having, they can always have bread and butter or peanuts butter. Try reading “Bread and Jam for Francis” to your littlest ones.
Joni Mango

If the kale chips are dehydrated, they will keep all the enzymes and nutrients in them…..even better for you.
Cathy

Made the kale chips last night for my children…they loved them!! Thank you:)