Eat Better, Eat Together is a blog series by registered dietitians, educators and parents whose stories and advice help families start or strengthen a commitment to balanced family meals. Take the Eat Better, Eat Together Family Meal Pledge at Facebook.com/DairyCouncilofCalifornia.

Children love to share what they learn in school with their families, especially when the topic is nutrition. I frequently hear parents say their children ask for healthier foods as a result of nutrition education. At the Dairy Council of California, we want to help parents engage in the discussion and continue this conversation at their family meals.

Recognizing the importance of communication with families, we include a home connection piece with each of our curriculums. Included is a brief overview of what their child will learn in class, such as “I will learn the main nutrients in each food group” and “I will learn to read the nutrition facts label on food packages”. We also provide activities that the teacher can send home for the family to do together.

Students and families love the homework piece of our school programs. We provide this connection because it:

• Engages families to be involved with student learning
• Provides students the opportunity to practice the skills they learn in the classroom
• Encourages families to make healthy choices

In what ways can you reinforce nutrition messages at home? Here are some suggestions taken from our classroom programs:

• Take your child with you to grocery shop. Engage in conversation about the foods in your basket like which food groups are there and which foods are your child’s favorite.
• Encourage your child to help plan and prepare meals at home.
• Discuss as a family: how will breakfast help us during the day? Which food groups do each of our dinner foods belong in?

Family meals are an excellent way to stay connected and enhance the development of your child. Your family meal can be any time of day, not just dinner. Start or strengthen a commitment to family meals by taking the Eat Better, Eat Together pledge.

The first and most important place where children learn healthful attitudes about food is in the home. Children learn best by doing, so get them involved! That is, if they don't get you involved first.

Subscribe to the Dairy Council of California blog, follow @Dairy_Council and #EatBetter2Gether on Twitter for more tips and the latest on healthy family meals.

Tracy Witmer, R.D.
Territory Manager

Since USDA’s MyPlate was introduced in June 2011, many educators are asking if they should throw out their MyPyramid materials or if those materials can be used with the MyPlate icon. I get the impression that most educators think MyPyramid is now invalid, so I wanted to clear up the confusion.

Both MyPlate and MyPyramid are based on the same information, i.e. the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They are different visual representations of the same nutrition information. Each serves a unique purpose and both remain available for educators.

To help clarify, I enlisted the help of Health Educator and Dairy Council Schools Supervisor, Debbie Asada. Here she shares a few key points:

• MyPlate is a great visual icon for students and adults. It serves as a quick reminder of what food groups should be on our plates at every meal. Though MyPlate is a helpful visual in the lunch room, the education behind it is fundamentally important.
• Both icons are based on a food-grouping system, so either visual is a valid form of representing the 2010 Dietary Guidelines. A food-grouping system simplifies students’ choices and allows them to easily grasp nutrition concepts by answering the “why”. Educators will have more success teaching nutrition by continuing to use this approach.
• The three main concepts students need to conceptually grasp at their respective age levels are: balance, variety and moderation. These ideas overlap and are critical in learning to make healthy choices. Once this is accomplished through a nutrition curriculum, MyPlate serves as a great visual reminder to make those choices at each meal.

Dairy Council continually updates our materials to reflect current dietary guidelines and effective educational strategies. We will retain the food group approach as it is the most effective in the learning process.

Try our new My Plate Match Game to see how your food group knowledge stacks up!

Also, the MyPlate icon is a great depiction of a balanced meal, i.e. one food from each food group. Eating balanced meals together as a family is a strategy for improved health and well being. Learn more about the Eat Better, Eat Together Family Meals Campaign. 

Tracy Witmer, R.D.

Stories are easily relatable and can help children make important connections to bigger concepts. Parents and teachers often point out how nutrition and literature reinforce each other. As part of language-arts curriculum, for example, many second grade classrooms read Dragon Goes Shopping by Dav Pilkey. Besides building language skills, it excites children to talk about food and nutrition. They learn about the food groups as the main character eats too many “extras”.

Many favorite books can open a discussion on nutrition outside of school, maybe at your dinner table or at bed time. With some of your favorite food stories you can even extend learning with a kid-friendly cooking activity or interactive online tools.

Here is a short list of books, recommended by school librarians, that help teach children about good nutrition:

Motivational Books for Children: Health & Nutrition by Jeff Gottlieb and Martha Gottlieb (Ages 4-8)
Fun rhymes teach the importance of balancing meals and build animal vocabulary, "Eat a balanced meal, Seal". It also touches on good hygiene,"Take a bath, Giraffe".

The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food by Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain (Ages 4-8)
The Berenstain Bear kids are not taking advantage of all of the wonderful healthy foods in Bear County. With the help of Dr. Grizzly's slide show on how the body works, the Bear family makes a healthful adjustment in their diet and fitness habits.

We Like To Eat Well by Elyse April (Ages Infant-8)
Cheerful rhymes remind parents and children to eat fresh and whole foods. Based on the USDA food groups, it promotes a wide variety and a proper balance of healthy foods, including different ways to eat them.

I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato (Charlie and Lola) by Lauren Child (Ages Baby-Preschool)
Lola is a picky eater and won’t eat her mashed potatoes until Charlie explains that they’re cloud fluff and peas are rare "green drops" from Greenland and more! Will she end up eating tomatoes?

Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition by Lizzy Rockwell (Ages 4-9)
This book shows, in a kid-friendly way, the importance of eating a balanced diet, the process of digestion, nutrients and their functions. Plus, it includes a handful of nutritious recipes at the end.

The Monster Health Book: A Guide to Eating Healthy, Being Active & Feeling Great for Monsters & Kids! By Edward Miller (Ages 7+)
Covers your basics: readers learn about nutrients, food illnesses and disorders, how to read foods labels, how to make time for breakfast, tips for packing the best lunch, the benefits of having a sit down dinner, and the importance of sleep and exercise.

Have you read any of these? Tell us some of your favorite children's books that make the nutrition connection!

Tracy Witmer, R.D.
Territory Manager

Children see right through us when our actions don't match our words. They look to parents, grandparents, teachers and other adults as role models. The back-to-school time of year is a good time to remember how influential adults are in the lives of children in regard to healthy behaviors. Parents are a child's primary teachers and role models, yet teachers and school personnel play a key role by modeling healthy behaviors.

A few thoughts on being a healthy role model for school children:

• Do you emphasize to your children the importance of breakfast for each school day?
• Are the food and drinks on your desk the same ones you encourage your students to choose?
• Are classroom party foods healthy & balanced? If not, try a food-group party; it can be creative, fun and tasty!
• Do you celebrate success with non-food rewards? Rewarding behaviors with food teaches children to associate food choices with emotion; instead try offering fun activities or privileges to facilitate a healthy relationship with food.
• Can you encourage nutrition education as a regular component of your child's school day, not an “extra”? See how our curriculum meets required content standards and what teachers say about our lessons.

Parents, you can use these tips to be a healthy role model with your kids at home. Not only does modeling healthy behaviors encourage others around you, but it also instills those healthy habits into your daily routine. Before you know it, it becomes a normal part of your lifestyle.

Share with us how you act as a healthy role model.

Tracy Witmer, R.D.
Territory Manager

We heard from 1,283 teachers in our latest survey, which is conducted annually in May. The responses show:

• 96% of teachers would recommend our materials to other teachers
• 95% said “students gained knowledge and skills about healthy eating” after using our curriculum

Over 50,000 teachers receive our curriculum each year. Not surprisingly, each classroom varies from the next. Some teachers use a lot of technology; others use none.  Some of you want more nutrition lesson plans to teach; others want less. We strive to make our materials easily adaptable to work in each of your unique classrooms across the state.

This is my second year working on this survey, and each time I have been touched by the sweet expressions and appreciation from teachers.

It was hard to pick only a few, but here are some of my favorite testimonies shared by teachers this past year:

“Dairy Council has helped make [students] aware of what a balanced diet is and how to maintain a healthy weight. They are very into reading labels and figuring out what is in the food they eat.”  Kelly Hughes, Sunny Sands Elem, Palm Springs Unified

“I have taught this unit for over 20 years, and I never fail to be impressed with the knowledge gained by my students.”  Lynnette Lucchesi, Colony Oak Elem, Ripon Unified

“I know expenses keep rising and revenues keep falling, but this excellent program fills in HUGE gaps in health instruction that are not met through the science textbook series adopted by our district. Thank you!”  Laurie Grider, Owens Intermediate, Bakersfield City School District

“Each year it impacted my students’ knowledge of healthy eating in a fun and meaningful way. I have done this every year for the past 10 years.”  Lori Inostroz, Tokay Elem, Fontana Unified

“Dairy Council provides vitally important lessons on healthy eating to children who are in the process of developing life long habits."  Janet Parker, Lankershim Elementary, San Bernardino City Unified

We know time is precious and we value the effort and thought given when responding to our survey. You don’t have to wait for our yearly survey to contact us. We enjoy hearing from you often, our customers and friends.

Tracy Witmer, R.D.

Territory Manager

We shared some great Tools for a Healthy Summer in a previous blog, including kid-friendly snacks and parent-friendly tools.

Striking a balance between rest and play is what summer is all about. Sometimes kids need to be encouraged to get moving and I love to see the activities that their imaginations create. I found some creative (and simple) ways to keep kids active using paper milk cartons or plastic milk jugs. Kids won’t be the only ones enjoying some of these!

Milk Carton Bowling: Use empty milk cartons as bowling pins. Try to knock them over by rolling a ball into them. Challenge your friends to stand further back each time.

Homemade Horseshoes: Create “horseshoes” by gluing three wooden sticks together (pictured). Fill an empty milk carton half way with sand or water. Depending on the age of players, stand 5-20 feet behind a milk carton and take turns tossing your teams’ horseshoes. Give points for horseshoes that are close or touching bottle, and more points for horseshoes that land on the bottle.

Water Balloon Catch: Cut the bottoms off gallon milk jugs and tape the edges. Decorate the jugs. Fill a supply of water balloons and see how high you can throw the water balloons and how many you can catch in the jugs without breaking.  

Long summer days make it easier to enjoy family activities. Pick one of these 40 Family Activities for each night of the week.

Your teens can use this Exercise and Activity Tracker for ideas on keeping active healthy bodies all year long.

After all of these fun activities, fuel up and refresh with these tasty kid-friendly snacks (they are healthy too, but no one will mind)!

We would love to hear from you. Please share your creative summer activity ideas with us!

Tracy Witmer, R.D.

Territory Manager

Photo courtesy of Disney FamilyFun, www.familyfun.go.com

With all of the seemingly comparable “milk alternatives” in the grocery store, have you lost a value for milk? Here are some reasons why I keep milk in my shopping cart:

• It’s affordable: A gallon of milk averages $3.30; that’s about 21 cents per cup! Healthy eating can fit into your budget.
• It’s natural: Milk naturally contains significant amounts of essential nutrients like calcium, protein, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and vitamin A. One cup of milk has protein equal to 10 cups of almond milk or 2 cups of soy milk. “Milk alternatives” have some beneficial nutrients, but other nutrients must be added to make those products comparable to milk.
• It’s nourishing: There is something soothing about the simplicity of milk juxtaposed with its hearty package of nutrients. A single cup of milk contains as much potassium as a medium banana and as much calcium as 12 cups of spinach. Milk is the main food source for 3 of the 4 nutrients that most Americans are lacking: Calcium, Potassium and Vitamin D.  For that reason, the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that everyone over age 9 consume 3 cups of milk and milk products everyday.
• It’s versatile: I like to make oatmeal and soup with milk instead of water for a nutritious boost. I like to mix up a cold glass of chocolate milk after working out. The versatility of milk allows it to fit into a wide variety of eating occasions. I bet you’ll find a favorite use or two with these ideas.
• It’s wholesome: Dairy families and processors take pride in their products so you can enjoy them and benefit from the nutrition. It’s wonderful that we can reap the benefits of milk through all stages of life.

Milk is worth every penny. It adds just the right touch to balance a meal or as a stand-alone snack. This is why I keep adding milk to my shopping cart every week.

Share with us why you put milk in your shopping cart.

Tracy Witmer
Registered Dietitian

Two California schools are finalists in the Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge for Schools. In association with the USDA, the Let’s Move Initiative challenged schools, nutrition professionals, chefs, students, parents and interested community members to create recipes that kids will love on their school lunch menus. These tasty, healthy, exciting new recipes fit into one of three categories--legumes, dark green/orange vegetables and whole grains. Just five entries per category were selected from all over the country.

A team in the finals from Manteca, CA wanted to develop recipe that encourages students to try new dark green or orange vegetables. The creative team includes high school students from three of the five area high schools with the help of their Culinary Arts teacher, Amy Lee, Manteca Unified Nutrition Services Department and local restaurant chef Bryan Ehrenholm. They created a delicious side dish using butternut squash grown by a local farmer that supports their Farm to School Program. It’s now a favorite dish served with roasted chicken at school and will be published in a new USDA recipe book!

Many taste tests from Joshua Cowell Elementary School students later, the final Central Valley Harvest Bake became a star!

Next, a review team will be visiting schools to check out the recipe, meet the team and narrow the finals down to one recipe from each category. Those three teams will go to Washington D.C. for the final cook off with White House chefs!

Teams will be rewarded separately for popularity, so they need your votes! Support our local California schools.

• Vote for Manteca’s Central Valley Harvest Bake in the vegetable category here.
• Support fellow California team from Oakland for their Spanish Chickpea Stew in the legume category here.

To see the final 15 recipes in all three categories, visit Recipes for Healthy Kids. Public voting ends May 15, 2011. The website has recipes and new ideas worth checking out. Happy cooking!

Tracy Witmer, R.D.

Territory Manager

Photo: Chef Bryan Ehrenholm with Sierra High School students.

In March, after months of watching the school garden grow and pulling its weeds, the first graders at Carl H Sundahl Elementary in Folsom got to enjoy the fruits (or should I say vegetables) of their labor. Each first grade student pulled a vegetable from the school garden, and once washed and ready to serve, each piece completed the final masterpiece, a Friendship Salad. The colorful Friendship Salad was shared with both first grade classrooms.

They began this journey in the fall, planting a cornucopia of produce: celery, peas, rainbow chard, rainbow carrots, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and three varieties of lettuce and onions. Though some of their crop was lost to frost or not quite ready, they pulled from their bounty and even wanted seconds of salad! Kids even asked if they could take some home to share with parents.

Behind these activities is a standout volunteer. Monica Easton, parent of one of those first graders, strives to overcome the barriers that prevent school gardens from thriving. Built 10 years ago with a grant, the school garden has been abandoned for the last 5 years. Though it needs work, Monica has led activities around the garden. To top it off, she also agreed to teach her child’s first grade class about nutrition in conjunction with the garden, using Dairy Council’s Healthy Choices, Healthy Me! curriculum.

In April, they plan an End of Harvest Salad activity for all students who want to join after school. The summer garden will be growing and by next fall, students will experiment with fresh salsa! As mentioned in our earlier post, gardens are a great way to build skills that support classroom learning and beyond! We congratulate Monica, and others like her, for your efforts to bring nutrition into the school day.

For more on the connection between Gardens and learning, visit California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom.

Tracy Witmer, R.D.

Territory Manager

Our older relatives likely did it without thinking about it and many of us are finding value in it again. Whether it’s for recreation, economics or nutrition, gardening trends are ablaze. Did you know that gardeners usually eat more vegetables than non-gardeners?

School gardens are also gaining popularity, especially with high profile encouragement from the likes of First Lady Michelle Obama. School gardens can teach students not only nutrition, but also tie to subjects such as Science, Math, English and Social Studies. After evaluating school gardens, the National Gardening Association found improvements in students’ motor skills, scholastic achievement, self confidence, leadership skills and attitudes towards school and the environment.

Even if your school hasn’t found the volunteers or the resources to spearhead a school garden, you can bring gardens into the classroom by planting a Milk Carton Garden! Many seeds grow fast enough to plant and enjoy before the end of the school year like tomatoes, radishes and sunflowers. Find a healthy recipe that incorporates your freshly grown produce for an interactive healthy party the kids are sure to love!

To find registered school gardens in your area, grant opportunities and more, visit KidsGardening! For tips and resources, including ideas to celebrate garden month visit NationalGardenMonth.org. You may also find classes offered at your local California Farm Bureau office to help you garden at home. In this case, dirty finger nails are encouraged! Get digging!

Tracy Witmer, R.D.
Territory Manager