Stonyfield Farm
From LoveToKnow Organic
Stonyfield Farm is a well known brand of organic items. Recently LoveToKnow had the opportunity to talk with Vicki Koenig, registered nutritionist and dietitian for Stonyfield Farm, about encouraging children to eat organically by creating a menu from local, organic ingredients. You can find Vicki's sample menu here.
The Challenge of Creating an Organic Menu for Children
LTK: What got you interested in organic foods, and especially organic foods for children?
VK: I've gardened for 20 years. My husband and I love it. We have bees, raspberries, strawberries, fruit trees and some unusual plants like hardy kiwi and elderberries. The last two years, we've been making elderberry syrup, which is just elderberries and honey. It's a great immune enhancer! We also make Echinacea tincture. We grow kale that lasts through the winter. I freeze jars and jars of pesto. It's a bit of an obsession.
LTK: What are some of the challenges parents have in creating an organic menu for their children?
VK: Expense and availability are the main challenges. When you're traveling, it's hard to keep to the organic commitment. It's just not available at road stops. Time? Does organic take longer to cook? Yes and no. If you're eating processed dishes, there are some decent organic alternatives. For the purist, it probably requires a little more time.
LTK: Why are local, in season, and organic so important to children's health?
VK: Children are more vulnerable than adults to pesticide exposure. Young digestive tracts absorb toxins more readily than adult digestive tracts, and young kidneys don’t detoxify as efficiently as adult kidneys. As a result, toxins circulate longer in babies’ bodies, boosting exposure to four times that of adults. Exposure to pesticides has been linked to cancer, nervous-system and lung damage, reproductive dysfunction, and possibly dysfunction of the endocrine and immune systems.
LTK: How can a parent go about creating a monthly kids' organic menu that is both healthy and appealing?
VK: You can work with a credentialed nutritionist like myself. Or simply brainstorm what menus work for your family and try to make it as colorful as possible. Keep introducing new vegetables many times for children to become familiar with. I find raw often works best.
Stonyfield Farm Helps Create a Healthy, Organic Menu
LTK: Why create a monthly menu, anyway?
VK: When you have a plan, you're more likely to follow it.
LTK: Okay, it's easy to create family meals based on local items in the summer, but what do the kids eat in the winter?
VK: Heirloom carrots from a local farmer's market. Pickles! There are a couple farmers that sell greenhouse-grown pea sprouts and other fresh greens. They're choice! We also store potatoes. As I mentioned, I grow enough kale that winters over. I've actually picked it in February if it's not too snowy or icy. (I actually have pictures of my kale plants in the winter. This is not too common, is it?!) I've also seen table top cherry tomatoes and red peppers you can grow indoors! They fruit several times a year.
LTK: How can you put together a good breakfast on a busy weekday?
VK: Sounds simplistic, but make sure you've got all the good ingredients available. Shall I name brands? Organic Stonyfield Farm yogurt and Nature's Path cereal.
- Quick organic oats, (not instant) with fruit.
- I make French toast pretty quickly. I use organic multi-grain bread and local, free range eggs that I know they don't treat.
- Arrowhead Mills organic multigrain pancakes with added Stonyfield Farm yogurt (instead of milk) with our raspberries added. Local maple syrup.
LTK: What about sending a lunch?
VK: I love Applegate Farms turkey. I make or buy hummus and send it in wraps. I also send soup in a thermos. Organic refried beans, a little cheese and salsa in a wrap. I try to vary it.
LTK: Any ideas for keeping kids from trading off their healthy snacks for Twinkies?
VK: My girls are ten. I try to involve them in choosing their foods for lunch and have them actually making it. I'm lucky. The school my girls go to consider food an important issue. If a child was bringing candy or junk, their parents would be told to discourage this. My kids don't know junk food like Twinkies. Try more unusual fruits like 1/4 pomegranate or melon, berries when in season. Snacks to entice may not be local but can be healthy.
LTK: How do you get kids to eat vegetables?
VK: It's not always easy. I always encourage parents to grow a garden and get kids involved in some way: at least with picking. Harvesting vegetables, tomatoes or fruit is fun. Harvesting potatoes at the end of the summer is really fun! All of a sudden they just emerge from the ground. There's nothing like eating something fresh from the garden and then it becomes familiar.
We joined a CSA when the girls were born and said "the babies were our garden." The community of our CSA is very special. Besides being a beautiful place, seeing all that food grown in one place, picking your own, meeting other nice families and knowing your farmers; it is such an excellent place for children to grow up in.
LoveToKnow would like to extend its heartfelt thanks to Vicki for making it a little easier to understand how to create a menu that kids will love. You can find Stonyfield Farm products at many grocers or natural foods stores.
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