Celebrate National Nutrition Month
March is National Nutrition Month. The theme this year is “savor the flavor of eating right.” This is also a great time to celebrate the healthy nutrition emphasis of the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). As a participant in Horizons Unlimited Food Program, you are already an advocate of healthy eating, and helping to teach this core concept to the children you serve. Continue fostering the excitement for healthy nutrition in young children with this month’s celebration of National Nutrition Month.
Nutrition-focused activities for the month-long celebration include:
- Try a new fruit or vegetable each week of the month.
- Vote for your favorite food in each food group (grains, protein, dairy, fruits, vegetables).
- Highlight ethnic food traditions, offering a menu item from international cuisine.
- Draw pictures of fruits and vegetables, and attach them to popsicle sticks to make puppets. Have a produce puppet show!
- Watch Veggie Tales video episode to see produce characters in action.
- Give fun and unique names to foods.
- Decorate the dining room with colorful balloons and streamers to celebrate healthy nutrition.
- Organize foods into fun shapes and pictures when serving on plates.
- Have the children help you create a healthy, balanced menu for a day.
- Decorate half of a baked potato with sliced cherry tomatoes and olives, peas, shredded cheese to make a funny face.
- Use different herbs and spices than what you typically would, to taste the difference in flavors.
- Read books that have a focus on food and overall nutrition. Here are some good picks:
- Jamberry by Bruce Degan
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
- This Is the Way We Eat Our Lunch by Edith Baer
- Oliver’s Fruit Salad by Vivian French
- Muncha, Muncha, Muncha by Candace Fleming
- “I Will Never NOT EVER Eat a Tomato” by L. Child
- Gregory, the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat
- Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray
- The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food by Stan & Jan Berenstain