Here is an article about the NYC high school class about food I mentioned in class last week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/nyregion/06metjournal.html
In this class, high school juniors and seniors learn about "food broadly defined — its social, political and economic aspects," according to the article. They take many field trips to local farms, markets, butcher shops, and museums to learn about the different ways food is produced, who has access to healthy food and why, and how to eat in healthy way.
I think this is a great way to teach young people about food and healthy living. If we do try to bring a supermarket to Central Harlem, perhaps we can stipulate that the market offer food education classes to the community.
I think it's great to see other students learning about the availability of healthy foods, and as their teacher Ms. Kessler said, "The purpose of going there [Meat Hook] is just for them to know it’s out there...It’s really hard to cement in their heads that there are other options to industrial food.” That's very similar to the whole foods market solution we're trying to implement; we want to make a healthy food market available for Central Harlem residents, hoping to improve their eating habits and benefit them.
ReplyDeleteNice!! You know it's like the precursor project to something we'll attempt to do in this class. And considering that these high school students, it just makes practicle sense, that we as college students should go one step further. We know the importance of healthy foods, so for us, it becomes sorta our duty to ensure that all healthy food preaching we are doing to the young students gets somewhere. And we mobilize our efforts to increase the presence of these healthy food options.... And I totally agree that any supermarket that sells food, must engage consumers in healthy food education and consumption!!
ReplyDeleteI really liked this idea of the supermarket offering food education classes because it was what I had in mind at first, since educating kids at an early age will really make a difference; having a supermarket that will offer healthier options and will benefit the community as well as CCNY and also offer education. High schools can offer the students maybe a credit for attending the course and also giving a project on what they learned.
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