Traditional Food Types - Nutrition Curriculum?

[pampered_mom]

I've been waiting...and waiting...and waiting for a well known blogger to publish her nutrition curriculum for the under 11 crowd.  First it was August of last year and then November and then February.  All of the mentioned release dates have been blown past and at this point I've given up.  I'm not going to contact her again because I have a feeling there will be some sort of logical reason and another post-ponement and at this point I'm not the slightest bit confident that future release dates will be accurate either.

So...now I have to come up with my own which seems a bit daunting.  I thought maybe someone else around here may have come up with something.  I'm just thinking of something pretty general.  It will only be our first go through, but I thought it would be a nice addition to our unit on the human body and most everything I've come across is pretty SAD.  Hehe, pun intended.

Suggestions for something appropriate for a young elementary school child?  Favorite books, movies, etc?

[pampered_mom]

35 views and no one?  That's ok...I'm short on ideas as well.  :0)

[sapphire_chan]

Ideas to think about off the top of my head:

what nutritional information do you want to present

how do the SAD programs introduce materials

what things have helped your kids learn stuff in other topics: pictures, songs, matching games?

Incorporating nutrition into meal preps and meal times.

Nutritional rules of thumb, like veggie as 1/2 your plate.

Basically, I'd figure out what existing curriculum would be great if it didn't have SAD nonsense, and recreate it with the nutrition I want my kids to learn.

[sapphire_chan]

Oh, and for books and things, how about starting with garden books and cooking together? It'll at least give a foundation for the kinds of things that are healthy and you can get into the why after you have a chance to do more development.

[tankgirl73]

Heh, I think I've been waiting for the same curriculum as you, darn it...

[moominmamma]

Just curious: what are "traditional food types"? Are we talking paleo diet here? Whole foods? 

Miranda

[jillyofthevalley]

Originally Posted by tankgirl73 

Heh, I think I've been waiting for the same curriculum as you, darn it...

I'm looking for the same thing.  I don't want to introduce the Canada Food Guide to the kids because I don't believe it's the healthiest way to eat.  They really push the low-fat dairy, margerine, lots of grains, etc. The kids and I do have discussions though about why we buy full fat dairy, don't touch margerine with a ten foot pole etc while we are grocery shopping  but I would love a kid friendly unit we could study together.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by jillyofthevalley 

The kids and I do have discussions though about why we buy full fat dairy, don't touch margerine with a ten foot pole etc while we are grocery shopping  but I would love a kid friendly unit we could study together.

Since you're spending years with your homeschooled kids, presumably grocery shopping together, discussing your purchasing decisions, paying attention to what you eat and why you eat, preparing your food thoughtfully and collaboratively, I can't imagine that a curriculum is going to add much to that. I think there's a place for nutrition curricula for kids who aren't involved in family life and meal preparation, those who are at school, who see the fridge and pantry magically refill while they're off doing other stuff, for whom meals miraculously appear in their backpacks and on the table when they get off the big yellow bus, then yeah, a bit of structured teaching about how and why those foods are prepared is probably useful.

Miranda

[jillyofthevalley]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

Since you're spending years with your homeschooled kids, presumably grocery shopping together, discussing your purchasing decisions, paying attention to what you eat and why you eat, preparing your food thoughtfully and collaboratively, I can't imagine that a curriculum is going to add much to that. I think there's a place for nutrition curricula for kids who aren't involved in family life and meal preparation, those who are at school, who see the fridge and pantry magically refill while they're off doing other stuff, for whom meals miraculously appear in their backpacks and on the table when they get off the big yellow bus, then yeah, a bit of structured teaching about how and why those foods are prepared is probably useful.

Miranda

True enough...   I would love to see a traditional foods version of the food pyramid though.  Does anyone know if one exists?

[jillyofthevalley]

Just found this:

http://www.foodrenegade.com/realfoodnutritiontext/

ETA:  Nevermind...I think this is the one you were talking about that hasn't come out with the younger version yet.

[pampered_mom]

That's the one. I wasn't going to link it. It's been rescheduled a couple of times now. I understand that she's been busy and had a baby, etc, etc. I don't begrudge her needing to deal with those issues...however, I think it's bad business to not set realistic expectations for product availability. I emailed her back in January (?) and was told it would be ready in Feb. It's almost May now.

I've hemmed and hawed a bit since giving up on the pre-written curriculum. I think there is some value to talking about nutrition in a structured way. We don't typically have these sorts of conversations. At this point I've just decided to hold off until ds is a bit older and we'll use the youth version of "Omnivore's Dillema" as a spine.

Thanks to those who's posted...at least I know I'm not alone.

[NaturalFamiLEA]

Another one who has been waiting :)

I just found Nutrition 101 which looks REALLY good. Too bad I just exhausted our budget on curriculum a month ago :(

Here is the link: http://www.growinghealthyhomes.com/

[pampered_mom]

That one does look interesting...unfortunately, the Bible quote on the front would disqualify it for us. I need a secular curriculum.

[moss]

it would be great to see a curriculum like this or at least some good av materials.  my kiddo has listened to books on tape that i've been interested in about food science (gary taubes!  a little technical but he gets it)

i've seen these food pyramids:  http://paleohacks.com/questions/6279/what-would-a-paleo-food-pyramid-look-like#axzz1LcT5iwVJ  which works pretty well for us.

[pampered_mom]

Love tha food pyramid! I've been thinking about getting "Everyday Paleo" which is supposed to have a good chapter of suggestions in it which I hope will at least give me a good place to start.

[somebody]

I am new to weston prices information and I just love it! It makes so much sense! My children will definately learn about this stuff. I figure when they are a bit older I will read them the first few chapters of the Nourishing Traditions cookbook that I have. Also, having them help me prepare these types of foods will teach them as well.

[Calliope84]

I have this great book by the guy who made the world's healthiest foods website. It goes over all the healthiest foods and the nutritional content in them, how to cook them, etc. We will be eating a whole foods diet with DD and including her in the cooking from an early age, so I expect she will learn quite a lot just from that. I'm also going to give her her own plot in our fruit / veggie garden so she can learn how food grows. I don't feel like nutrition merits its own special topic slot. Honestly, all the useful info should be imparted every day as you eat, shop, and cook. I don't think nutrition even has a part in schooling except for all the practical ways it applies in real life. I think schools just teach it because parents don't. I'll teach DD about the scientific specifics of foods ( carbohydrates and fats and such) with nutritional labels. I have to do that anyway to avoid our allergens and to find foods that are minimally processed. I like Food Rules by Michael Pollan to use to guide how to teach nutrition (the healthy foods are found around the perimeter of the grocery store... Don't eat foods our great great grandmother's wouldn't recognize.)

It would be fun to delve into the history of food and find out what people in different times / places ate and talk about how it was healthy or why they ate it. Or to compare what vitamins are listed on your child's vitamin bottle to the vitamins found in the foods you are eating or growing. Finding out what those vitamins / minerals do for our health would also be part of the teaching.

[ocelotmom]

http://www.crossfitkids.com/index.php/About/ has a good description of Paleo food proportions for kids. Not really something you could spend more than 5 minutes on in itself, but simple isn't necessarily bad :)

That site may have other useful things floating around in PDFs.

[SundayCrepes]

Interesting thread. I'm a vegetarian so took awhile to read this. I figured it was meat based info. Sadly, for me, all the links provided are for meat based nutrition. 

For awhile I've been questioning how nutritious grains, especially wheat, are. Frankly, 20,000 years ago our ancestors did not eat bread or dairy. They ate fruits, vegetables, eggs, and mice (with a random mastodon thrown in there, lol.) I'd like to find scientifically researched nutritional guidelines based on that--minus the mice.

Recently we put our daughter on a gluten free diet to see if it would make a difference with her speech. Three weeks into it her speech took off. We don't know if it was just a coincidence, but we are staying gluten free. I love that it forces you to avoid most processed foods. (I am not buying the gf substitute foods. They're all highly processed so this is a great way to cut off the bagels, muffins, drive-thru french fries, pretzels, etc.)

So, not to hijack this thread, but if anyone knows of nutritional info for a whole foods, vegetarian diet, I'd love to see it.

[Millie Ivy]

I don't want to try to convince you not to be vegetarian or anything, if that's what floats your boat then got after it, mama. :-)  But I do want to address the whole concept of how we ate 20,000 years ago (or even 10,000 years ago...) it was a lot more that a vegetarian diet with "a mastadon thrown in every now and then"

Paleolithic man ate lots of variety of vegetation, berries,etc.  That's the "gatherer" part. But they also hunted and this was a large part of their life.  It wasn't always big game, they also would have hunted lots of smaller game (including rodents, lol)  I just don't get and have never heard that meat eating wasn't a large focus and drive for early humans. Did they always get to eat a large amount of meat daily?  Certainly not, but it was something that (and still is in indiginous cultures) humans would seek out for health and survival. 

I just think if you are interested in how we evolved to eat, you may really enjoy looking into the research behind traditional food/primal eating.  Not that you have to change over, but to educate yourself on the matter. Life long learning and all that!