The Smarter Lunchrooms Movement is a national movement that focuses on improving a school's lunchroom environment to promote healthy eating behaviors amongst the students. Even small, low-cost/ no-cost solutions can have a big impact! 

Have a blank wall in your cafeteria? Let UC CalFresh fill it with an educational Nutrition Corner! Take a look at the difference it's made at Birney Elementary. 

Before:

After:

This wall now features a Nutrition Corner highlighting the importance of eating fruits and vegetables, and the health benefits of each color! 

 Before:

After:

Another empty space became an opportunity to emphasize MyPlate and healthy snack choices!

Even the milk carts are encouraging students to drink milk and eat healthy foods!

The blank wall above the water fountain is a great opportunity to encourage students to choose water instead of sugary beverages. 

While finishing up in the cafeteria, UC CalFresh nutrition staff Evelyn Morales and Mishelle Petit were able to hear the reactions of students as they saw their updated cafeteria for the first time. Many students were quickly able to point out the new MyPlate images in their cafeteria. Some comments included:

 "Hey look, it's MyPlate!"

"Wow, it's like Christmas!"

"MyPlate shows you healthy foods."

While returning to Birney Elementary to teach the lesson, "Choosing Healthy Snacks and Beverages," I asked students if they ever thought about how much sugar is in some of their favorite drinks. Students from almost every class eagerly raised their hands to share that they learned a soda has 8 teaspoons of sugar from the poster in the cafeteria. This goes to show that small changes can make a big difference!  

If you have questions on the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement, please click here.  

"What did you bring for us to try today?"

This is the question I'm asked by my students in every class that I teach nutrition lessons. Tastings are brought throughout the school year for students to try new, healthy foods. It is the goal of UC CalFresh to give different types of tastings that come from the five food group on MyPlate for the students to sample. During the school year, I would always reference MyPlate with the tastings that the students were getting for that month. This gives them an idea which food group each tasting belongs to. 

Many teachers created nutrition corners based on the different tastings the students tried during this school year. One of the teachers who did so was Mrs. Thao at Bakman Elementary. Mrs. Thao went over the tastings with the students and then posted pictures of each tasting on the nutrition corner to remind the students of the great foods they were able to try through the UC CalFresh Nutrition Education Program. Each time I visited  Mrs. Thao's classroom, the students would remind me of what food they tasted, and tell me how much they enjoyed it or didn't enjoy it. Of course, all of the feedback from the students is great to help us improve our tastings for them to try in the future.  

I've enjoyed talking with my students this year about the foods they were able to try. It's always exciting to see students try new foods, which  leaves me with my own question:

"What will we bring for them to try next time?" 

“Visit a nutrition booth at an event? No. They'll just lecture me. I know I'm not healthy.“

"Stop by the nutrition booth? No. I don't have time. Plus, that's boring."

These are some comments the public might have when it comes to nutrition booths. Because we want to change these comments and incorporate more physical activity, we are trying new carnival-type games when we provide nutrition booths at school and community events.  

At one of my school's Open House events, I put together this fun and easy educational game. Since I was teaching the “Building Strong Teeth” lesson, I used the "sometimes" and "anytime" dairy pictures, bean bags, and Frisbees to create an activity for all of our participants (parents and students). During our visit, we reviewed good sources of calcium in order to have strong teeth and bones.

Last month students in our program tasted grapefruit! This gave students the opportunity to explore the differences between an orange, a lemon, and a grapefruit. They were able to taste and see the differences in flavor, color, size, shape, and texture, and they wrote about their experience.      

During the tasting the students had lots fun! Thank you, teachers, for helping your students experience a new food.

Check out all the foods our students have tasted this year on our website.