More than a dozen local children got to experience food moving from farm-to-table and work on building healthy habits through unique cooking and nutrition classes at Stony Brook Medicine.
The annual Healthy Cooking and Baking Classes encourage children to gain kitchen experience and learn healthier cooking habits at an early age.
The three-day series, organized by the Department of Family, Population & Preventive Medicine’s Nutrition Division, teaches kids how to prepare their own meals and pick fresh farm-grown produce from the 2,242-square-foot rooftop garden known as Stony Brook Heights Rooftop Farm. The hospital’s rooftop farm supplies approximately 1,500 pounds of produce per year for patient meal trays and local charities.
Participating children took the fresh produce they picked from the Rooftop Farm — including zucchini, cucumbers tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and herbs — and made hummus and veggie wraps, lemony quinoa cucumber salad and fruit smoothies. These young chefs went home with easy recipes they can duplicate for their families.
“We all know that a healthy diet helps with overall health, and diet habits are forming right now with kids as young as 7, 8, 9 — even younger,” said Sotiria Everett, clinical assistant professor, Stony Brook Medicine. “The earlier they get some exposure to nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables, the goal is to help them establish a habit where they are eating such foods at an early age so they can continue eating them throughout their life, to stay as healthy as they can be.”
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods — typically high in calories, added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat — are tied to a multitude of health problems and account for about 62% of the calories consumed by children in the United States.
Children in the classes learned about how food and ingredients are grown; harvesting and choosing ingredients to prepare healthier food options; trying a variety of fruit and vegetables with the health benefits behind them; and proper use of kitchen equipment to prepare meals using ingredients they picked by hand. They also gained a hands-on approach to sustainable methods in farming, such as composting, choosing local foods and water conservation.
The cooking lessons focused on preparing vegetables with assorted colors and textures, to children excited about eating a variety of vegetables, leading to fewer fast food meals and healthier choices.
“I hope that message spreads to all of our participants,” said Everett, “where they get their families excited to take a pot, fill it with soil, throw a seed in it, and just take care of it for a couple of months to get maybe a salad out of it.”
