Ep 78: National Nutrition Month: How Canyons Juggles Healthy Foods with a Healthy Mindset
Mar 06, 2024
Canyons School District - Sandy, Utah
Our everyday vocabulary is peppered with mottos and witticism about food. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, as cool as a cucumber, like two peas in a pod, the list goes on. Aside from the biological need for food, we incorporate it into our lives in a number of ways. Structuring our days around meals, watching series about cooking or baking. There are entire sections and libraries dedicated to recipes and nutrition.
March is National Nutrition Month and research shows a strong connection between healthy behaviors and academic achievement. On a new episode of Connect Canyons, we hear from Emily Jenkins, registered dietitian with Canyons Nutritional Services to take a look into the hard work that goes into providing healthy but fun nutrition in our schools.
Our everyday vocabulary is peppered with mottos and witticism about food. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, as cool as a cucumber, like two peas in a pod, the list goes on. Aside from the biological need for food, we incorporate it into our lives in a number of ways. Structuring our days around meals, watching series about cooking or baking. There are entire sections and libraries dedicated to recipes and nutrition.
March is National Nutrition Month and research shows a strong connection between healthy behaviors and academic achievement. On a new episode of Connect Canyons, we hear from Emily Jenkins, registered dietitian with Canyons Nutritional Services to take a look into the hard work that goes into providing healthy but fun nutrition in our schools.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyon School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2:
Our everyday vocabulary is peppered with mottos and witticism about food. An apple a day keeps the doctor away is cool as a cucumber like two peas in a pod. The list goes on. Aside from the biological need for food, we incorporate it into our lives in a number of ways Structuring our days around meals, watching series about cooking or baking. There are entire sections and libraries dedicated to recipes and nutrition. Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, frances Cook. March is National Nutrition Month and research shows a strong connection between healthy behaviors and academic achievement, so we're taking a look into the hard work that goes into providing healthy but fun nutrition in our schools. I'm joined now by Emily Jenkins, our registered dietitian with Canyons Nutrition Services. Emily, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. So let's start with just the standards that we follow. There's guidelines that we have to follow when it comes to our school breakfasts, our lunches. Can you talk about what those are and why they're important?
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
So every few years the United States Department of Agriculture, usda, they look at the most recent research that we have related to nutrition and they develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Speaker 3:
And they take those Dietary Guidelines and they put them into practice with various things, but with school nutrition they focus on those Dietary Guidelines where they want to encourage the intake of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, low-fat dairy, limiting sodium, limiting sugar, those kinds of things, and it is all research-based. They have a whole team of doctors, people that study nutrition, study food science, all those things, and then they give those guidelines to us and they say, hey, this is how we want you to implement these guidelines and feed our kids so that they're the best equipped they are for learning. So our programs do focus on having whole grains. We have fruits and vegetables at every meal. We try to make it food that is delicious for the kids, that the kids like. That also has all those different guidelines that we meet Lower sodium, lower sugar. We do what we're told to do so that we can reserve our funding, but we also believe in what we do because we want to have the most healthy kids that we can and ready to learn.
Speaker 2:
And you provide options each day, right? They have a number of categories that they can choose from and they only have to fill two or three of those different elements, right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, so we operate it's called offer versus serve so that the kids have that opportunity, because it's also important, as they're learning how to eat, that they know how to make good choices.
Speaker 3:
So we provide, we operate under offer versus serve, where they're able to choose between, if they, if they don't want to take an entree, they don't have to, but they they are asked to take a fruit or a vegetable and then two other full components to make a meal. But, yes, so they have an option between. In the elementary, let them choose between three different entrees. We always have different options for fruits and milk choices and they're able to pick out of those to make a meal. And then in the middle and high schools, we have 20 plus different entrees choices when it comes down to the different flavors and things, and then they're able to pick from the different fruits and the milk choices and vegetables and all of that. So, yeah, we try to make sure that we encourage options as well, so that they also feel kids feel empowered to pick what they want to eat from a healthy selection of choices.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome and you create a lot of these recipes here at the district office, right? We've seen you in your your own little mad scientist lab coming up with different themes and things. Can you talk about that process?
Speaker 3:
Oh, absolutely yes. So we, we do. We try to look at food trends and see what people are eating outside of school meals and we try to go along with those. And then we do recipe testing in our, in our kitchens and then also here at the district office. We have a committee of kitchen managers that we meet with every other month. We try new recipes, taste them out and we see how they go. And then we test them in the schools with the kids to see what they think before we send it all the way across the district. Because I mean, really it doesn't matter if we like it.
Speaker 2:
It matters. If the kids like it, they have to want to eat it too.
Speaker 3:
Exactly so yeah, and we find recipes from the internet that we then can standardize and make for 400 people, or we, you know, find recipes from home that we can, that people like, that we can then standardize and make it for a large quantity. So, yeah, we definitely try to make sure it's. We're testing recipes and trying new things so that it doesn't get stale.
Speaker 2:
That has to be a fun part of your job, kind of figuring out recipes that you all like, you know yourselves, and how to make those, incorporate those into Healthy options for kids.
Speaker 3:
Oh, it is really fun. It's really fun but when it could be really frustrating, because I get really excited about something and then we try it with the kids and I'm like, oh, complete flop. A few years ago we had a sweet potato fry. That was delicious and I was so excited about it. I love sweet potatoes, the kids are gonna love it. We set up at Alta high. We were out in the comments area ready for the kids to try it and they wouldn't even taste.
Speaker 3:
Oh, no, they're like sweet potatoes gross, you know. So I have to be Realistic about who my audience is and what they like, rather than what I like.
Speaker 2:
I think they should like.
Speaker 3:
So you know we have to cater to them too.
Speaker 2:
You know, vegetables in general can often be a point of contention with kids and Convincing them to eat them and that they're tasty and good for them. What would your advice be to parents trying to kind of sneak those veggies into their meals?
Speaker 3:
Oh, I love that. So yes, it can be tough. I one of the major things is making sure that it's available to them. That research Supported that it may take up to 13 times for a kid to see something before they're even willing to taste it. They're. They need to be exposed and see and be aware of it and sometimes the exposures, they look at it and they touch it and they move it off their plate. But that is an exposure. So making it available to them is a big step.
Speaker 3:
But I think sometimes it's scary because you're like, oh, food waste.
Speaker 3:
You know it already cost so much to make a meal into vegetables in front of my kids just to have them throw it away.
Speaker 3:
So just doing a little bit at a time where you're giving them exposure to it and making it available and making it convenient for them too, it can be a barrier to kids when they go to open the fridge and you know they see all the carrots or a whole carrot that they'd have to peel and cut. I will just grab something else, you know. So making it convenient, trying to prep and make it available for them as much as possible and Trying it in different ways, I think we can be kind of scared of putting our vegetables into different things, but one of my favorite ways to cook vegetables at home is roasting them in a hot oven and and we're so used to steaming vegetables or just eating them raw, where you can try them in different ways. Roasting is my favorite way because it brings out different flavors in the vegetable use, but in a hot, 400 degree oven until they're cooked and it's delicious. So those are my major tips for vegetables.
Speaker 2:
And I'd say, you know, like you were saying with the oh, I have to now wash this giant carrot and peel it and cut it. So cutting those up, or having the baby carrots available or you know little package so they can just grab and go, because I mean, kids are all about convenience, right, if it's not ready right now?
Speaker 2:
I'm not gonna take the time to do it. I mean, I am too sometimes. Oh, totally, yep, absolutely. Another big topic is protein. How much protein we should all be eating, right, even as adults. We struggle with well, you know, I weigh this much. That equates to how much protein, and we get different answers from different people.
Speaker 3:
What would?
Speaker 2:
your advice be about getting protein into our kiddos meals.
Speaker 3:
Well for kids, I think the major thing is that as parents, we kind of think they need more than they actually really need and we also don't realize that the foods that may not seem like they have protein are still giving them protein, especially for little kids. We think, oh, they're not getting enough to eat. They won't eat meat, so they're not getting enough protein. If they're just drinking a glass of milk, they're getting a grams of protein, just like that. If they're eating a piece of cheese, they're getting six to eight grams of protein, just like that as well. And even just the pasta, if they just eat noodles, they're getting two grams of protein.
Speaker 3:
And most little kids around that age need anywhere from like 15 to 30. I mean, it's really not that many grams of protein that they need in a younger age. As they get bigger, as kids grow and they start to get more active and they're involved in sports and things, they will need a little bit more protein, especially kids that are more active, just to help their muscles recover after exercise and things like that. But it's still not quite as much as we need, as we think they need, and so that can be a big point, a big stress point, for parents is worrying that their kids aren't getting enough protein where in reality they probably are. It just may look different from what you would expect it to look like.
Speaker 3:
It's not always going to be that lean cut of meat, or they may not just eat a whole steak and get all their protein from there, but they're getting their protein from a lot of different foods, and it's oftentimes enough.
Speaker 2:
That's good to know. We also know talking about proteins and vegetables, a number of kids struggle with weight issues for a variety of reasons. The word diet can be a bit of a psychological trigger, right, but diet really just means your daily consumption of food. What is your daily diet Right? Not necessarily going on a diet. What advice would you have for parents when it comes to talking with their children about the merits of healthy eating?
Speaker 3:
Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, it can be really intimidating because we are in a culture that so focuses on, like you said, diets and the latest trends and the latest fads and following all those different things. It's kind of a focus on weight. Really, when you think about little younger kids and kids, you're trying to teach them a healthy pattern for life, right? So vilifying foods and saying, oh, you can't eat ice cream because it's not healthy, and you have to eat all your vegetables because they are healthy, can sometimes change the way that their brain is wired. So they think like, oh, ice cream is the best because it's something that I shouldn't be having, whereas vegetables are boring.
Speaker 3:
We hear all the time we have to eat our vegetables. So trying to talk about food in a more neutral way and focusing more on the benefits, rather than focusing on this is healthy this is unhealthy. Focusing on oh, broccoli can give you vitamin K, which is good for a healthy blood, and ice cream is delicious and wonderful and it's part of celebration Rather than ice cream is bad. It's unhealthy. So I think trying to keep just keep the talk around food more neutral and focusing on the qualities of the food, rather than focusing on what's healthy and labeling food as healthy and unhealthy, focusing on all foods fit in a healthy diet, because they do. All foods can fit in a healthy diet and they're an important part of life. All things in moderation, exactly, exactly, which is easier said than done when you've got a kid in front of you that you're like just eat the vegetables.
Speaker 3:
If you eat the vegetables, I'll give you ice cream. But again, that makes the ice cream look like this big golden ticket at the end of, we have to suffer through the vegetables.
Speaker 3:
So yeah, just trying to keep the talk neutral and especially keep the talk weight neutral as well. I mean, kids don't need to be told what their weight is and if their weight is healthy or unhealthy. They need to be told you need to eat food for fuel, eat food for celebration when you need to, but try to keep it less focused on their weight and more focused on the merits of the food and what it can do for their body.
Speaker 2:
Do you have any go-to websites or podcasts and things that when you're like, okay, I need a healthy recipe, I need something new for the kids that's tasty but also nutritious. Any go-to spots for you?
Speaker 3:
Well for school lunch. We've got a whole there's a whole section of resources that we use for those recipes and when you're making them for 50 plus kids that we get from USDA and other districts school districts that collaborate together. When I'm looking for things at home, I really like a website that's run just by dieticians.
Speaker 3:
It's called Eating Well and they put a lot of really great recipes on there, it's good stuff made by dietitians and written by dietitians, but also with the idea in mind that food should taste good because it should, it, should, it should. Yeah, it's not nutrition if you're not gonna eat it. So that's one place that I'll turn to if I'm in a rut and I need a new recipe for my family or new snack ideas or things like that. Perfect, yeah.
Speaker 2:
What's your biggest takeaway that you hope parents who are listening, students who are listening, will keep in mind when it comes to nutrition?
Speaker 3:
Nutrition is important, but it's not everything. We don't need to stress about every single thing we put in our body, because our bodies are made to handle all kinds of food and again, it's important, and eating good, healthy food is important, and fueling our learning is important, and all of that and making sure we're getting enough to eat and not too much to eat is important, but it's not everything. Nutrition is just, and the food that we eat is just another part of life that you know. It all works out in the end. You just gotta make sure you're eating enough and eating as much of the right foods as you can, without stressing too much about it.
Speaker 2:
It's just one piece of the big puzzle.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's important and obviously I think nutrition is important. I've made my whole job around it every day and almost every minute I'm thinking and talking about food, but it's not everything that can make a healthy lifestyle. Yeah, yeah, just important piece of the puzzle. I like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I think it's important to also have these conversations in a healthy and positive way, so that you know we can approach things without going straight to oh, I have to go on a diet just knowing where we are in our day-to-day lives. So thank you very much for sharing your insights with us. Yeah, thank you for having me and thank you for listening. If there's a topic you would like to hear discussed on Connect Canyons, send us an email to communications at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at canyonsdistrict, or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
