Whatcom nonprofit helps young students take healthier bite of life
When children eat better, they learn better, act better, and feel better, says Laura Plaut, executive director of Common Threads Farm, a Bellingham-based nonprofit that gardens, cooks and eats with kids in schools and low-income apartment complexes across Whatcom County.
“Empowering young people to make healthy food choices is one of the simplest and most effective ways that we can help all youth – particularly those living in high-risk circumstances – to be more successful in their lives physically, emotionally, and academically,” Plaut said.
The term “farm” is a little misleading, Plaut said, since there is no actual farm but rather 24 schools that they garden and cook with and (at the moment) three to five low-income apartment partners, depending on the season.
“Our job is to help kids become their own ‘experts’ on making healthy food choices by keeping it really simple: Eat whole foods, eat all the colors of the rainbow and all the parts of the plant, etc.,” Plaut said.
More than 35% of Washington state students questioned do not eat enough vegetables, according to the 2016 Washington State Healthy Youth Survey.
All of the research shows that the foods we become familiar with when we’re young are most likely to be our “go-to” foods as we get older, Plaut said. This is why helping kids fall in love with healthy food from an early age is particularly important: It sets them up for a lifetime of healthy eating.
Asked for some general nutrition guidelines for the body – and mind – Plaut turned to Michael Pollan, who she said summed it up nicely in his book “Food Rules.”
“He distilled nutritional guidelines down to this: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.,” Plaut said. “What I love about his approach is that he’s encouraging us to eat whole foods (rather than highly processed ‘food-like substances’). My worry is that when we make nutrition complicated, it’s harder for people to get excited about making baby steps towards a healthy diet. This is why we try to keep our approach as simple and joyful as possible.”
Asked if she could suggest any “superfoods” for mind and body, Plaut declined. The idea of superfoods really misses the boat, she said.
“It’s not about eating more chia seeds or kale so much as it is about eating foods that are whole (unprocessed, close to nature) and colorful (I love that if you eat the rainbow, your body will get the diversity of nutrients it needs without you even having to know a lot or think a lot about what nutrients are in which foods),” Plaut said.
Common Threads engages youths in healthy food through what Plaut calls “joyful food experiences.”
“From a nutrition standpoint, we will serve our community best if we make nutrition less about rules and ‘have-to’s” or ‘shoulds’ and more about helping young people to discover that they actually feel a lot better when they eat better and that healthy food is also delicious food,” Plaut said.
Correspondent Cindy Uken is an award-winning veteran journalist.