"I did the menu": how children teach parents to do their shopping
"We are what we eat. The food does not grow on the plate”, The stanzas of What the Earth gives us by the Turin rapper Marco Richetto, aka Rayden, perfectly summarize today's first meeting, 26 February, at the Festival of Food Journalism, scheduled at the Cavallerizza Reale in Turin. The central theme of the conference From pizzetta to spinach: when communication pushes children to eat well it is the healthy nutrition of the little ones. Different experiences of effective communication in schools and consequently in families have been told.
The Municipality of Turin in recent years has been active in the implementation of projects aimed at improving nutrition in the Primary Schools. "Food becomes a daily choice - said Mariagrazia Pellerino, Councilor for Education -. Issues such as environmental impact and conscious consumption show that school catering can be an educational setting ". Thus in the last three years the City has concentrated on a new specification for canteens, winning a European tender on best practices in the food sector. "With the funds we received, we changed Turin school catering - explained Pellerino - by introducing compostable tableware and then starting the project I made the menu". On 80 dishes that today are provided to children in the canteens, 45 have them chosen them directly, after a path of workshops with dieticians, farm trips and local markets. "Children should be taken seriously. We have made their wishes come true, "concluded the Councilor for Education.
Another interesting project is the one presented by Marina Bagni, from the Ministry of Health, which began its intervention with a verse from an Asturian poet: "The beast of every communicator is being able to change the color of the lens with which everyone sees reality".
To help children change their vision of the world, the Ministry has embarked on a three-year experimental path, from which theatrical plays with the youngest protagonists were born. “We have involved more than one hundred children by teaching them to reduce risk behaviors linked to the choice of food - said Bagni -. At the end of the course they knew how to explain to their parents the difference between intolerance and allergy or between a stomach ache and an intestinal pain ".
From this project work a publishing series was born entitled "The Theater of Health”: Among the shows, written by the author Emiliano Venturi, we remember Louse, Guess who you recycle, The window on the refrigerator e 4001: A milky way odyssey.
Eating well means first of all safety, health and the environment: Manila Bianchi, from the Piedmont Liguria Valle d'Aosta Institute, explained it well, and illustrated some educational workshops realized after Expo. Stay Healthy an example of how, by breaking down the mascot of the “Foody” universal exhibition into its fruit and vegetable parts, you can teach the nutritional characteristics in a fun and engaging way. "We have involved 2.500 children between the 6 and the 12 years that at the end of the workshop they created a cartoon (visible to this link) on conscious eating, "concluded Bianchi.
di Federica Frola e Sabrina Colandrea (Futura)
