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KIDSNACKS! Traditional Foods for a Healthy Future A Traditional Snack Guide Based on Ojibwe Foods A CURRICULUM FOR EDU CATORS AND AFTER - SCHOOL CARE PROVIDER S Kidsnacks! This guide was written and compiled by Julia Braun, Americorps VISTA In collaboration with University of Wisconsin Extension, Ashland County Thank you to all who helped with this project, including: Joy Schelble Betty Tarabek Annie Anderson Luis Salas Rebecca Lemieux Deanna Cloud-Moore Camilla Vargas Peter Werts Kathy Jensen Christy LeGrew And a special thanks to all of the brave participants from the Birch Hill Community House Table of Contents Introduction 1 8 Snacking Tips 2 How to Use this Guide 3 S E C T I O N 3 Elders: A Sacred Resource 4 AUTUMN The Power of Storytelling 5 Cranberries 88 Healing Foods Circle 6 Wild Grapes 95 Traditional Foods Pyramid 7 Seeds 101 Eat with the Seasons 8 Herbs 107 Activity: What Was Our Food Squash 113 Like? 9 Pumpkin 120 Corn 126 S E C T I O N 1 Beans 132 SPRING Wild Apples 138 Maple Syrup 12 Activity: Making Paper and Wild Greens 19 Dyes 144 Mushrooms 25 Tubers 31 Beach Peas and Wild Peas 37 S E C T I O N 4 Activity: Solar Food Dryer 43 WINTER Black Walnuts 147 S E C T I O N 2 SUMMER Hazelnuts 153 Strawberries 46 Jerusalem Artichoke 159 Blueberries 53 Venison 165 Raspberries 59 Wild Turkey 171 Cherries 65 Plums 71 Resources and Further Reading177 Wild Rice 77 Activity: Plant a Three Sisters Garden 85 i Introduction his curriculum is designed as a way for youth to become engaged with their T traditions, culture, and health through food. It is designed as a way to rebuild the connection between the earth and our bodies, using the cycle of the seasons and the rich regional foods as our guide. Our goal is to empower young people to make thoughtful decisions regarding their food choices and activities and to take pride in the rich food history of the traditional people of this region. Specifically, we believe that by rebuilding a connection to traditional foods, the rates of Type II diabetes and childhood obesity, a dangerous precursor to diabetes, will be lowered in our communities. 1 8 Snacking Tips! 1. Prepare snacks that are kid-friendly. When serving fruits and vegetables, offer them in bite-size portions. 2. Offer low-fat dips to accompany healthy food choices. Children eat more fruits and vegetables when they are served with yogurt dips and low-fat salad dressings. Read labels though-- “low-fat” does not always mean healthy. 3. Select only juices that are 100 percent juice. Many products that advertise themselves as "fruit juices" contain no more than 10 percent juice. Avoid soft drinks whenever possible. 4. Limit cookies, doughnuts, brownies and other baked goods and limit chips and other salty, high-fat snacks. Instead serve baked pretzels, air- popped popcorn, granola or low-fat cheese, whole grain crackers, bagels, rice cakes or tortillas with peanut butter, jam or low-fat cream cheese. 5. Plan ahead when going on outings. Instead of buying snacks at fast- food restaurants or concession stands, pack individual snack bags, filled with pretzels, nuts and dried fruit to take along with you. 6. Avoid classifying foods as "good" or "bad." There are only bad diets— when foods high in sugar, salt and fat are eaten in excess. All snack foods can be enjoyed in moderation. 7. Don't be swayed by advertising. Many prepared foods that are marketed as kid-friendly are poor in nutrition. For example, popular packaged lunches that come with a treat and a drink get two-thirds of their calories from fat and sugar. 8. Slow down and enjoy your snacks! 2 How to Use This Guide With the seasons as a guide, we begin our curriculum with spring. Spring is a time of growth and new beginnings. Each season has five to eight traditional foods that are available for that time of year. Each food is divided into several sections: Goals and Objectives; Talking Points; Food as Tradition; and Food as Medicine. In addition, each food has five recipes and five physical activities. Goals and objectives This section will simply highlight the basic understanding that the children should walk away with. It is the heartbeat of each lesson. Talking Points These are bulleted ―highlights‖ of the lesson for easy reference when working with the children. They are guides for you as the educator and are intended for the educator to share with the kids. Food as Tradition This section is designed to provide the educator with a background and history of the food and how it was used traditionally. We will explore what the food is like in the wild versus how it is used to day (e.g. crab apples vs. the apples that are eaten today). This section will also include any stories or traditional crafts that may have been used with the food. Food as Medicine I C O N K E Y This section will highlight how important a diet rich in traditional foods is. V aluable Many information of the foods that were eaten by traditional people were highly nutritious, low in fat and Test sugar, your knowledge and essential to the health of the people. Because of the transition to the modern diet, many of these Keyboard exercise nutritional elements have been lost. This section focuses on a holistic approach to nutrition and a basic understanding of how food affects our health. Workbook review Recipes and Activities: Each food will have five easy recipes and five fun physical activities. Five options are provided so that you as the facilitator can choose just one recipe that sounds the best from each section or you can choose to do all five— Monday through Friday. The recipes are designed to be as easy as possible to work with. Many of these foods will be foreign to the young participants, but the purpose is to reintroduce the foods back into our diet and the only way to accomplish this is to try new things. The traditional foods have been ―made over‖ to fit into a kid-friendly snack! The physical activities are included as a way to make exercise fun. Most of the activities correspond with the snacks, although a few activities are just fun! The message of all of the recipes and activities is to explore your world, try new things, and have fun while doing it! 3 Elders: A Sacred Resource Traditionally, elders have been looked to for advice and guidance. Elders are a good source of information and an invaluable resource. Finding those in your community who can share information about gathering, harvest, storing, preparation, and uses for the traditional foods is an important part of this curriculum. Invite those with the knowledge to put it into use. Have them teach classes or mentor on a one-to-one basis with the children. It can not be overemphasized how important the incorporation of elders is to this curriculum. Establishing a relationship with elders to help teach lessons of tradition will greatly enrich this curriculum, both for the educator and for the young people. A great place to begin developing this relationship is to begin this lesson with an interview. A guide for the interview is offered in this curriculum. Have the kids pick a food from the curriculum and an elder in their community. This person can be a grandparent, an auntie or uncle, or even a family friend. If the kids do not know of an elder to speak with, invite the youth to ―adopt‖ an elder from the community by inviting an Elder’s Center or other group to participate. It is important to invite elders to share their information in the proper way. In honoring their knowledge and asking for their help, an offering of tobacco is used—in Ojibwe, this gift is called assema. 4 The Power of Storytelling Stories are an important part of enriching our relationship with food. We encourage educators and adults to familiarize themselves with these stories before sharing with children. When we become familiar with a story, the words leap off the page and into our imaginations. “Tell children a story and they listen with their whole beings. Lead children to touch, smell and understand a flower, to listen to the wind sighing in a pine grove, to see the waving blades of seaweed along the shore or to taste a sweet wild edible berry and you begin to establish connections between children and the plants in their surroundings… help children appreciate their stewardship role and how all things are intertwined.” (Bruchac, Joseph and Caduto, Michael J., Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children. Fulcrum Publishing, Golden, CO, 1994 pg. XVII) Many of these foods are deeply intertwined with the stories that surround them. The story of how the Ojibwe people got Manomin, or Wild Rice, is as much of a part of the experience as eating the rice. There are many versions of these stories, and many have been left out. Ask community members for their versions, or ask the children to make up stories for those foods without traditional ones. 5 Native Foods Circle Choices for a Healthy Life Fruit:: Protein: Vitamins, Fish, Birds, Minerals, and Meat, Nuts, Phytochemicals Seeds, Dried Beans and Peas Breast milk for Babies Vegetables: Vitamins, Carbohydrates: Minerals, and Grains, Phytochemicals Dairy products were not a Breads, and traditional food. Cereals Traditional calcium sources include fish bones, fish head soup, maple syrup, and dark leafy greens 6 Traditional Food Pyramid 7 Used with permission.