Natalie Freeman offered young children a taste of a fresh tomato Wednesday. Josh looked scared. Brooklyn played with her piece. Madyson refused to try it. Zac also declined the invitation. “I’m not hungry. I had a big breakfast,” he proclaimed.
Rachel took a piece, though. “It’s really good. It’s juicy,” she said as she ate her slice slowly. She took away another piece in a popcorn bag to eat during a tour of Dickey Farms in Tontitown.
Apple Seeds Inc. offered the program for elementary-age students in School Kids Connected through the Boys and Girls Club in Fayetteville. Youngsters stood in the fields where many different food crops were growing and were offered bites of tomatoes and bell peppers. The next day they assembled and ate their own taco salad snacks made from vegetables they saw growing the day before.
Apple Seeds is a local nonprofit organization working to encourage healthy food choices with gardenbased education, said Freeman, a program coordinator for Apple Seeds. Children also visited a personal garden and had the opportunity to plant and pick produce.
Throughout the school year, Apple Seed volunteers highlight the process that takes food from farm to plate, beginning with gardens and garden clubs in various Fayetteville schools. The harvest is turned over to cafeteria staffs, who then include the produce in the children’s lunches.
“Kids don’t realize where their food comes from anymore,” said Eden Stewart, a program coordinator. “We want to make that connection, to realize how much work really goes into it. And because it takes so much work, they can’t waste food.”
“We encourage them to try new things,” Stewart added. “We want them to know it’s right around the corner, and it tastes good.”
“That’s how powerful food is,” Elizabeth Asbaugh pointed out. “A big part of eating is talking about what it looks like, how it feels.”
Asbaugh, director of the Apple Seeds program, believes in her mission because society seems to be traveling away from raising produce locally.
“We want to change kids’ attitude,” she said. “To get away from that stereotype of ‘I don’t like it.’ How do you know if you’ve never tried it? How do you know you don’t like it?
“We want to get more healthy food in them. It’s been proven that even adults don’t get enough and need more.”
The children on the trip tried new things on a voluntary basis only.
“Statistics say you must be introduced to something seven times before you make up your mind about it,” Asbaugh said. “My taste buds have changed. I’ve tried foods again as an adult — and two are still on that list of things I don’t like.”
Students leave the programs having sampled local wares and holding recipes for healthy snacks to share with their parents.
One of the recipe offerings was homemade pizza, Stewart explained. “I had a kid say, ‘I didn’t know you could make pizza. I thought it came out of the ground.’”
As Freeman encouraged kids at the farm to sample the tomatoes and bell peppers, she offered some advice:
“Don’t ‘yuck’ your food,” she said, hoping to stall the negative influence of peer pressure. “If you don’t like it, don’t say anything. Just spit it out without a fuss.”
Deana Dickey was on hand to discuss her family’s hard work on their farm. The family plants roughly 20 acres, but not all of the fields are in production all of the time.
Dickey showed the children her pumpkin patch, and told them to come back at Halloween to pick one. She noted that her pumpkins will be white, pink, orange, green and black — but not to look for a grand champion 200-pound pumpkin from this field.
Dickey further explained that all the pumpkins were planted by hand. “We stay up all night making holes,” she said.
And she explained how the weather can affect a crop and showed irrigation lines running from a creek and blooms that will turn into pumpkins by fall.
The group of children walked a long row of a grape arbor in production with purple grapes almost ready for picking. They passed recently planted rows, with small vines growing up to reach a wire.
“You guys get to see a fully grown plant and a baby plant,” said Bernice Hembree, a member of Apple Seeds’ Board of Directors and a volunteer on this day.
Soon, the boys noticed crickets and grasshoppers and began to chase them. The students also pointed out bees that pollinate the plants and even a frog.
Broken equipment left in the field also intrigued them. And most had never heard of compost.
Hembree stopped the group in the tomato field, with fruits beginning to ripen.
“I’m going to eat that tomato one day,” declared Josh when he saw a big, red one.
Hembree had them smell the air, which the kids proclaimed smelled “fresh.” She had them gently touch the vine and smell their hands.
“These plants are living,” she said. “Your shirt, your water bottle, they’re not living.”
Then the students measured tomato plants for height against their bodies. They compared this to tomato plants in a hoop house.
They talked about the tomatoes they tried earlier in the day. Even though he claimed to not like tomatoes, Brayden declared: “I like ketchup.”
“Then you like tomatoes,” replied Joey Taylor, serving this day as a chaperon from the Boys and Girls Club.
The next day, students spent the afternoon at Fayetteville’s Owl Creek School, making taco salad snacks with fresh produce.
“Do you like tacos?” asked volunteer Susan Tharel. The students sat still and quiet, raptly watching as she cut tortillas to make shells for the snacks.
As the kids added ingredients under Tharel’s direction, they recognized a few.
“I’d recognize that scent anywhere,” said Madison, referring to a bell pepper she tried on the farm trip.
“Garlic will kill a vampire,” Logan stated.
When given the opportunity to try two different kinds of parsley and taste the difference, Sloan very dramatically imitated a person vomiting.
“I’m going to be adding a lot of ingredients,” Logan said, as he rubbed his hands together. Sloan chose only cheese.
“It’s amazing how all these things come from plants,” Tharel said to the kids. She talked about other alternatives for healthy after-school snacks.
Finally, the taco bowls were ready to eat. Cate had a mild meltdown when he realized his had eggs, but scraping away by Tharel made the snack edible.
“I had it, and I loved it, but its taste is kind of funny,” said a very outspoken Kaylie.
Jack, however, had a unique response: “I can’t wait to get back to school and play my DS,” he said.
“My kids would say the same thing,” Asbaugh said with a laugh.