- Author: Harry Mok, UC Office of the President, harry.mok@ucop.edu
University of California Cooperative Extension nutrition educator Marc Sanchez brings the fearsome beast with him on school visits to classrooms in Merced and Stanislaus counties.
“Let me introduce to you the Green Monster,” Sanchez says to a classroom of second-graders at Yamato Colony Elementary School in Livingston. “Is anybody scared?”
“Noooo,” the kids roar in defiance of the beast.
Sanchez borrows from TV's “Fear Factor” challenges and uses his youthful energy to entice the kids to conquer the Green Monster — a spinach smoothie made tasty with bananas, grapes and pineapples — and embrace a healthy drink made with foods they normally...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The San Joaquin Valley produces fruits and vegetables for the nation. Why are the school children living here being deprived of this healthful and delicious bounty?
That’s the question Terri Spezzano asked when she was hired to be the nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for UC Cooperative Extension in Stanislaus County six years ago. She made it her mission to get fresh local food in the hands of the county’s youth.
“Kids are eating canned peaches that have come from orchards next to their schools, been shipped sometimes overseas and then back again,” Spezzano said. “That’s amazing to me, when they could walk out the...