October brings with it four significant food related events:
- National Farm to School Month
- National Apple Month
- Food Day
- and the newest, Big Apple Crunch Day
According to the USDA, apples still top America’s favorite fruit choices. Hand-held, portable and with a long shelf life, apples are the perfect school, sports and home snack for students and families alike. The old adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” still rings true as apples are a good source of fiber, vitamin C and antioxidants. They have no fat or cholesterol and they break down into complex carbohydrates which give the body a long energy boost. With 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States, chances are, there’s a favorite apple for everyone. http://jerseyfresh.nj.gov/find/appletypes.html.
October 24 marks the fourth annual Food Day created by the Center for Science in the Public Interest to encourage young and old alike to connect to “real food.”
Year-round celebrations culminate with a day of action nationwide with over 4,700 events held in every state. Last year, the first ever “Apple Crunch Day” was held in conjunction with Food Day in New York with 1 million people taking bites of apples with the “crunch heard ‘round the world.”
Children who know where food comes, what to do with food, along with how to cook, will have an advantage when it comes to healthy food choices, avoiding obesity and other health problems. Why not jump on the apple bandwagon, source some local apples and encourage your students to take a juicy bite this October 24th?
Participation in this year’s Big Apple Crunch on Food Day is simple. Schools can register at https://bigapplecrunch.squarespace.com/individual-sign-ups/ and while you’re at it, don’t forget that it is National Farm to School Month and you can share your apple crunching stories with the farm to school movement nationwide at http://www.farmtoschool.org/about/farm-to-school-month.
To locate New Jersey grown apples, visit: http://jerseyfresh.nj.gov/find/apples.html or contact Tri-County Cooperative, a farmer-owned cooperative based in central New Jersey at http://www.tricountycoop.net/. Pick-your-own options in New Jersey can be found at: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/09/apple_picking_nj_2014_fall_farms.html and http://www.timeout.com/new-york-kids/things-to-do/best-apple-picking-farms-and-orchards-for-families-near-NYC?pageNumber=3. Visit NJ Farms website has a search function to search for apple orchards near you at http://www.visitnjfarms.org/find_farms/.
For food service recipe ideas and a bushel of apple info, visit: http://usapple.org/ or Jamie Oliver’s site: http://www.jamiesfoodrevolution.com/pdfs/apples.pdf.
And if you’re into posting on social media, tell everyone you know that local, healthy, crunchy, delicious apples matter to your students!
- #bigapplecrunch
- #foodday2014
- facebook: Mid-Atlantic Farm to School
HAPPY CRUNCHING, EVERYONE!!
