Catalyst Cooks up Healthy Change
Catalyst is a statewide movement of young people based in Minnesota working on promoting healthy eating and nutrition education. We use hands-on advocacy and activism to spread our message.
Since students eat at school five days a week, creating healthy school lunch items is an important focus for us. Recently, we worked with a great group of students at Henry Sibley High school in Minnesota, the school’s food service staff, and a local chef, to come up with a new, nutritious school lunch menu item. After brainstorming a bunch of ideas, we came up with a plan. The students then helped cook a great Greek meal, and served it to their peers. It was an awesome experience for all.
We created a video about this experience so we could share it, and perhaps inspire other students to bring about healthy change in their own schools. Check it out below, and visit bethecatalyst.org to learn more.
I'm so impressed with the efforts they've made in the Twin Cities. My mother-in-law works as a cook in ISD 196 (right next to the district where this was filmed). Her elementary school is sourcing locally grown produce and doing a "Fruit (or Vegetable) of the Week" promotion where there are bulletin boards about the item. The students are encouraged to just taste it, just one time, so they know what it is.
This is awesome! I am a Henry Sibley graduate, so it was super exciting to see them making these changes right in my district. 🙂 When I went there in the 90s it was a lot of pizza, burgers and fries.
Totally off topic, but have you read
_The Jungle_ by Upton Sinclair? It's about meat processing, and I think you'd find it very interesting.
Thanks – I love it! I'm going to share this with my middle school students in Colorado.