Real Kids Real Food: From seed to plant to eager minds
6 Sep 2012Do real foods stand a chance with children who are accustomed to processed junk foods?
To Hippocrates Health Educator Betsy Bragg, of Massachusetts, the answer is a big YES. With support of volunteers, she has just successfully finished the first season of a healthy after-school program called Real Kids Real Food (RKRF). Every two weeks, 40 students, ages five to 14, met at the Elizabeth Peabody House in Somerville next to Boston. (78,000 people who speak 52 languages live in Somerville within four square miles.)
“This has been absolutely wonderful,” says Betsy, the executive director of the non-profit Optimum Health Solution, and health educator facilitating an ongoing 10-week course Life Force Energy?—?The Hippocrates Approach to Optimum Health, in Waltham, Massachusetts, since 2008.
Brian Axelrod, the lead volunteer for the classes, stressed that locally grown foods are the best. Currently working for a nonprofit called “Food For Free,” Brian was a fortunate match for this concept, having been able to obtain free produce for RKRF. The generously donated foods included pineapples, bananas, spinach, zucchini and avocados.
“They had eaten guacamole but none had made it before,” Betsy recalled. “They loved squeezing lemons and mashing up the avocado.”
No one guessed how well the students would receive the new food. “Sunflower sprouts and green Ninja smoothies were a real hit and asked for over and over again,” said Axelrod, who explained the origins and health benefits of Swiss chard, almonds, dates, sesame seeds, carrots, string beans, strawberries, lettuce, broccoli and other real food.
Each session began with exercise, such as yoga, tai chi, qigong, and improvisational skits to imitate seeds in search of light and beginning to grow. As the days became warmer, hands-on activities included bringing small plantings to the outdoor garden. The students experimented with their own tiny seeds, first planting them in small containers, then transferring them to their own special outdoor garden, already filled with the organic soil they had examined with a special magnifying lens. By the last class, students enjoyed harvesting and feasting from their garden. Though the program is now over for the summer, the kids will continue to care for their plants, as they attend EPH summer camp.
“I think our garden is great!” said Axelrod. “The kale is ready to be harvested. The soil is so lush and rich. It’s some of the best kale I’ve ever eaten!”
Each lesson included reading stories with plant themes, bringing awareness about the wonders of life force and starting conversations about how plant foods are the best for all.
Marcus Gorman, a 15-year veteran of a hospital clown troupe, brought the essential element of fun and joy to the program. His personal collection of puppets played their role as well.
“A few times, when the class was coming back together after exercises, and Brian was having a little trouble quieting , I came behind him with one of the puppets and I indicated to the kids not to let him know that the puppet was on his shoulder. They started to quiet down because they wanted to hear what the puppet had to say,” Gorman said.
Real Kids Real Food came to fruition after Betsy shared her dream of bringing the lessons of better eating to children and found several of her students and graduates interested in helping to make it happen.
“Lisa Santana, of Somerville, said that she’d like to run an after-school program,” recalled Betsy. “Another graduating student, Bonny Carroll, host of the Somerville television show “Raising Families” and a member of Somerville Early Childhood Committee, offered to work with Lisa and inquire if Elizabeth Peabody House would like us to run an after-school program about healthy eating.”
It was also fortunate that “the week following Life Force’s graduation, in November 2011, Karen Ranzi, author of Creating Healthy Children, was staying at my home while on a lecture tour,” Betsy continued. “At one of her lectures, I met Brian Axelrod, who had worked with Karen’s daughter in an Eco-Village in India during his junior year at Lesley College, where he majored in Sustainability and minored in Complementary Medicine. We immediately hit it off and he signed up for Life Force Energy as an intern and as a volunteer for the potential after-school program.”
While not everyone who started could stay, other volunteers joined in, like Miro Fitkova, a graduate of Life Force, and Letitia Richards, Vegan Health Coach / owner of Peace of Food Wellness and Assistant Manager of Prana Cafe. Over the course of ten sessions of biweekly hands-on activities, RKRF’s volunteer staff started conversations with the students about seeds and soil, local foods and health, sprouts and homemade salad dressings, culminating each day with the preparation of something delicious.
Gorman recalls hearing from one student, “Please, please, please tell me we’re making smoothies today.”
“Our kids love trying new things,” said the EPH after-school director, Janai Mungalsingh. “I think they are really driven by their stomachs!”
As for going forward, she suggested that RKRF consider opportunities for civic engagement and community advocacy. “Healthy eating and moving are good, yes, but lifestyles need to be part of the focus,” she said. She would like to teach them how to shop and how to make better food choices, and also to create discussion points for dinner. Those points coincide with Gorman’s observation that “family involvement is crucial for the success of the program.”
Parents appreciated the dinner prepared by the students at the end-of-the-year party on June 6th. “This was surprisingly delicious,” said Belia Ducasse, who has three sons under age 10. “This was very engaging and surpassed any expectation.”
The raw menu included green smoothies, zucchini pasta with marinara sauce, guacamole and rainbow-colored veggies, sunflower sprout salad with Hippocrates dressing and carob mousse. Parents and children enjoyed the food so much that many asked to bring leftovers home, along with the recipe booklets provided.
“They were coming back for seconds,” said Gorman. “I was telling all of the adults that it was all raw, live, nothing cooked. They were surprised! One kid came back, and he already had been back for seconds, but he wanted to take some home for his mom, who couldn’t attend.”
“I think it was a huge success,” said Letitia Richards. “Sarah and I were saying that even with kids who misbehave, when you give them a responsibility, they go and do it. I loved how this all worked out.”
RKRF fulfills the Optimum Health Solution (OHS) mission of eliminating obesity, chronic disease and malnutrition, especially in children. All proceeds of the non-profit’s programs contribute to actualizing this vision. In order to continue and expand RKRF, OHS has launched a campaign to raise funds.
“Our intention is to have RKRF be a model for after-school programs across the country and the world,” said Betsy. “Our goal is to heal the planet, one person at a time.”
To participate in this dream, please visit the RKRF website for more details: www.realkidsrealfood.org. And please send tax-deductible contributions
payable to and mailed to:
Optimum Health Solution
337 Newton Street #4
Waltham, MA 02453
If you would like to start a program in your area, please e-mail:
Since this article was written, some incredibly good news has come to the folks who make Real Kids Real Food happen in Massachusetts!
Betsy Bragg, executive-director of Optimum Health Solution, attended a special two-day lecture by Brian and Anna Maria Clement in New Jersey and shared with them the brochure of RKRF and the big dream to continue and expand the program in the Fall, with a challenge of raising $7,000 through the end of the summer to fund the two programs in September. “In a spontaneous burst of generosity, Brian offered to cover half of that amount! We are ecstatic! ” says Betsy. “Now we know at least we have one program covered and hope others might feel compelled to contribute as well.” Another piece of good news is that Karen Ranzi, author of Creating Healthy Children, who hosted Brian's two-day event, will use the lesson plans from our website (RealKidsRealFood.org) to launch a similar program in New Jersey. Brian's talk inspired three other women to volunteer to join Karen in this endeavor.