How schools in Brazil are teaching kids to eat their vegetables

http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-11/how-schools-brazil-are-teaching-kids-eat-their-vegetables

“We’re going to grow the same things we did last year — arugula, lettuce, radishes.”

The vegetables they grow are used in school meals. But the real aim of the school garden is not to supply ingredients, he says, but to teach students where food comes from, so they can develop a connection to their food.

“When we ask students where lettuce comes from, they say the market,” Colombo says. “They have lost contact with nature, the soil, sowing, and growing of crops.”

And that is reflected in their diets, he says, which are increasingly unhealthy.

Students say the school garden project is teaching them a lot about how to grow food, though it's still hard for some of them to appreciate vegetables.

Just like in the US, highly processed foods like fast food, soda, and high-fructose corn syrup have become all too popular here in Brazil. And obesity rates are rising, even among children. It is a nation-wide problem that has alarmed the government and public health experts in the country. Brazil’s government has banned sodas, cakes and cookies in school meals. It has restricted the amount of salt and sugar in them as well. It also requires at least one daily serving of fruits and vegetables.