NOTES FROM THE FIELD

Food Is Elementary
      By Rebecca Alvania 

In a small classroom tucked into the corner of the cafeteria of Hampstead Hill Academy in Baltimore, a teacher asks her class of sixth-graders to name a few leafy green vegetables. The answers they call out—bok choy, dinosaur kale, swiss chard—sound more like something you’d hear in a gourmet cooking class than a middle school lunchroom. The students not only know the names of these vegetables, they can also rattle off their health benefits and the edible parts of the plant—all while whipping up a ten-person meal in under an hour.  

These kids are not culinary prodigies. They are enrolled in "Food is Elementary," a nutrition education curriculum developed by Dr. Antonia Demas, a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF). She put the program together in response to the lack of attention  to childhood nutrition in environments such as schools and daycare. To date, "Food is Elementary" has been taught in hundreds of schools across the country, including two Baltimore schools—Hampstead Hill Academy near Patterson Park, and the Stadium School in Waverly. In January 2008, Demas expanded the program into six more Baltimore schools to continue spreading the message that if you teach kids about food, you’ll be amazed at what they’ll eat.

Demas began working on her nutrition curriculum decades ago, after volunteering to improve the quality of the food at her son’s Head Start program. After completing her doctorate at Cornell University, she founded the Food Studies Institute, a nonprofit that seeks to improve the health of children through better nutrition education, improved school lunches and parent involvement. The premise for Demas’ curriculum is that if children are taught about nutrition in a way that incorporates culture, health and practical food preparation skills, they’ll develop healthier eating habits that last their entire lives.

According to Demas, when she first began consulting on food education in public schools in the early 1980s, she developed food-based units that fit with what the students were already learning. Her decision to incorporate other subjects into her food education program was in part an effort to overcome a perceived bias she oberved at the time regarding the educational merit of a nutrition curriculum on its own. “There was a bias amongst some educators at the time that this was not serious education,” says Demas. “It was woman’s work, cooking.”  

For students studying ancient history for instance, Demas developed a lesson that builds upon the archaeological discovery of bog people, human remains found in sphagnum bogs. The remains are so well preserved by the unique  water conditions found in bogs that often the internal organs are perfectly intact, including the stomach. “In one case, researchers dissected [the bog people’s] stomachs to see what their last meal was,” says Demas. “So we replicated their last meal. It was a grayish porridge and even though it didn’t look very appetizing, the kids just loved it because they had the knowledge base and they knew the history.” 

Demas also began approaching her work with a greater focus on research. “I wanted to apply data, so it wasn’t just a woman in an apron surrounded by kids,” says Demas. “I wanted to elevate it.” Her Food Studies Institute website reports that children who participate in her nutrition education curriculum show a greater willingness to try new foods, healthier eating habits and greater knowledge about nutrition and health. There also appears to be a “trickle up” effect; the kids take home the information they learn in class, and often an entire family reports improved eating habits. In a 2001 study conducted at Bay Point School for Boys in Miami, Florida, after three weeks in Demas’ program several students showed lower cholesterol levels and weight loss, as well as improved grades and athletic performance.  

In Baltimore, graduate students working with CLF perform much of their school-based research using the "Food is Elementary" curriculum. CLF also provided supplementary funds to the Baltimore Food is Elementary program to buy earth boxes, train food educators, conduct cafeteria taste tests, and to send students travel to New York to present their program at the UN.   

The expansion of the "Food is Elementary" curriculum to six more Baltimore schools in 2008 is in large part the result of the success of the first two Baltimore programs. “We’re looking for sustainability and buy-in,” explains Demas. “We want three-to-five-year projects where we write grants for three years to pay the food educator; then [the schools] have to take over the [food educator’s] salary. The Baltimore model shows we can get the buy-in. [The schools] need to believe this is valuable education, and if they believe that they’ll find the money for it.”  

At Hampstead Hill Academy, the students recently made a veggie stir fry as part of their class on the biology and health benefits of vegetables. The kids do everything from food preparation to clearing the table, and they do it with gusto. One boy makes a quick grab for the garlic press, while the rest brek off into cooking teams divided by task. Three girls gingerly cut up carrots, while in the bok choy group a boy explains to his classmates how to correctly tear off the thick leaves. There is talking, laughing and gossiping, all to the sounds of Brian Wilson’s song “Vegetables” playing on a boombox.  

In short, it’s as chaotic as one would expect eight sixth graders in a kitchen would be. But it’s controlled chaos, because they’re all interested in what they’re doing and they’re all invested in the outcome. After all, they’re the ones eating it. As the bell rings signaling it’s time to change classes, one girl gathers her belongings and assesses the meal: Though she "thought [the stir-fry] would be gross, it turned out delicious.” In sixth-grade parlance, that’s a ringing endorsement.