Guest Post: Eating the Rainbow!

This blog is cross-posted from http://www.sweetgreen.com/blog/2011/07/25/sweetgreen-schools/ and written by Pheobe, a Sweetgreen intern. Sweetgreen in Schools is a program created in partnership between Sweetgreen and Arcadia's D.C. Farm to School Network.

Although the academic year has ended, Sweetgreen in Schools is in full force at two new locations: Ketcham Elementary School and Kenilworth Elementary School. For those unfamiliar with the program, Sweetgreen in Schools is our community outreach initiative made possible through a partnership with Arcadia’s D.C. Farm to School Network. The program seeks to teach children about fun ways to eat fruits and vegetables, the health benefits of farm-fresh foods and “where food comes from.” The series culminates with a salad-making competition in which the students use their creativity and fruit and veggie knowledge to impress the judges with their unique salad.

For this week’s lesson, students served as taste-testers for Sweetgreen’s “new” Rainbow Salad. Most students have never heard of Sweetgreen, but they were very excited to put their taste buds to the test. The classes prepared the rainbow salad using red strawberries, blue blueberries, green cucumbers, orange carrots, purple beets, and yellow corn. These delicious ingredients were served on a bed of green spinach and dressed with honey dijon, champagne vinaigrette, or a mixture of both! As the students munched on the salad, we talked about the health benefits of eating a rainbow-colored diet. They were surprised to learn that the Vitamin C from beets helps heal cuts and antioxidants from blueberries gives us a memory boost for studying. After everyone’s plates were emptied and appetites were satisfied (some students came up for fourth servings!), students used the describing words we came up with as a class in their letters to the Sweetgreen chefs. They wrote about the most exciting parts of the rainbow salad, what their favorite fruit or vegetable was whether or not it should be added to the menu. The overall verdict: a definite YES!

Next week, we are going to do some detective work with a Mystery Fruits and Veggies game. Then the classes will taste test a salad with ingredients from a different plant parts. Yum!

-Phoebe K, Sweetgreen Intern

Student insights:

• “I think you should put rainbow salad on the menu because it is sweet, awesome, righteous, fantastic, crunchy and delicious.” -Mekhi

• “I tasted your salad and I think is very wonderful. And when I took one bite and it felt like I took a thousand bites. It was out of this world. And I will ask my mom can she put your logo on Facebook so the people can go to your store.” -Kailya

• “Your salad was great and your slogan should be ‘Rainbow Salad: tasty and good’ and you should keep making Rainbow Salad and I think it will be wonderful to others. My favorite fruit and vegetable was strawberries and cucumbers and I love your salad.” -Khalyl