Research ArticleExpanding Children’s Food Experiences: The Impact of a School-Based Kitchen Garden Program
Introduction
Food choice in humans is often determined by taste.1 Bitter and sour tastes are common in plant foods, consumption of which is highly desirable in a balanced diet. However, encouraging children to try these foods as a means of promoting diversity in diet and meeting nutritional recommendations is often problematic. Interventions aiming to increase children’s willingness to try new foods are generally education-based (ie, nutrition education with some tasting component),2, 3 garden-based,4, 5, 6 or a combination of both.7, 8 Nutrition education generally is composed of descriptions of foods and information regarding nutrition content. Reverdy and colleagues3 conducted taste classes and found a strong positive but temporary effect, which disappeared after 10 months, on willingness to try new foods. They concluded that extensive recurring exposure to new foods was required to achieve any lasting change to food preferences rather than cognitive education.
Kitchen garden programs are another mechanism through which children can be introduced to different foods. The nature and extent of existing kitchen garden programs vary; the main differences are related to whether there is a cooking component in the program and the amount of student involvement in the gardening and/or cooking activities. The descriptive terminology varies accordingly. For example, the “Edible Schoolyard” describes a seed-to-table program for grade 6 children from 2 schools in California,9 the “youth nutrition program” describes a nutrition education program conducted within South West Detroit,10 and the “school garden program” describes a garden-based program in an elementary school.11 For the purposes of this report, the term “edible garden” refers to programs that include active participation in developing and maintaining a garden with edible plants. The term “kitchen garden program” refers to programs that, in addition to a garden with edible plants, include participation in preparing and cooking meals in the kitchen-classroom using food harvested from the garden.
The increasing popularity of community-based kitchen garden programs has extended into the school setting, with widespread reports of school community benefits but limited evidence about impact and outcomes,6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 particularly for programs with a dedicated cooking component.9 There are indications that cooking and gardening programs have positive outcomes such as engagement in the program activities,17, 18, 19, 20 increased nutrition knowledge,19, 21, 22 increased ecoliteracy,4, 9 as well as beneficial impacts of experiential learning.22, 23, 24 There are also some early indications that gardening and nutrition pro-grams can increase willingness to taste vegetables4, 5, 25 or increase preference for vegetables.17, 21, 22, 26 In a review article by Robinson-O’Brien et al,6 3 of 11 garden program evaluations included willingness to taste vegetables or other foods as a measurement of change. The results of these 3 evaluations differed: 1 study reported increases in children’s willingness to taste fruits and vegetables,25 a second study reported increases for only vegetables,5 and a third found little evidence of an increase.21 More comprehensive and rigorous evaluations are required.6, 14, 15, 27 The authors were unable to find other published studies that examined the impact of cooking classes or kitchen garden programs on willingness to try new foods.
This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of a school-based kitchen garden program: the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden (SAKG) Program.28 The program model is embedded in the school curriculum and includes 45 min/wk in a garden class with a garden specialist and 90 min/wk in the kitchen with a cooking specialist. The program is designed to give children knowledge and skills in environmentally sustainable gardening. Children were actively involved in all aspects, from garden design, preparing beds, planting seeds, transplanting seedlings, nurturing the growing plants (including weeding, watering, fertilizing with homemade compost and “worm juice,” and applying organic pest control) to harvesting the yield. The cooking component of the program included teaching the children to safely wield sharp chef knives in preparing and cooking 3- or 4-course meals based on available fresh produce from the garden. Different dishes prepared each week included handmade pastry, bread, and pasta; salads; curries; and desserts. At the end of each kitchen class, the children, staff, and adult volunteers shared and enjoyed the multi-course meal that was prepared.
A primary outcome of the program and subsequently the program evaluation was children’s appreciation of a diverse range of foods, as indicated by an increased willingness to try new foods. A secondary outcome of the program and the evaluation was an increase in children’s capacity to describe foods, as a way of demonstrating food knowledge and sharing experiences and appreciation of food. This aspect of food appreciation, assessed in this evaluation, has not been explored in the kitchen garden literature despite its high profile in adult assessments of food and restaurants. Changing child dietary intake was not an outcome of the SAKG Program. Nevertheless, any increase in children’s willingness to try new foods would provide an opportunity to promote increased diversity and healthy eating in their diets. For this reason, the authors included assessment of healthy eating as a secondary outcome of the evaluation. Other components of the evaluation, including increased knowledge and economic, volunteer, and social impacts, will be reported elsewhere.29, 30
Section snippets
Study Design
The SAKG Program was developed without specific reference to a theoretical model but the research team was able to identify multiple aligned theoretical frameworks of relevance in consultation with the SAKG Foundation. A social-ecological theoretical model31, 32, 33, 34 and principles of effective health promotion35 informed the evaluation. Each recognizes the interdependence and impact of physical, social, and policy environments on individual behaviors and outcomes. Ozer’s34 social-ecological
Participants
A total of 26 classroom teachers, all school principals and specialist teachers, 17 volunteers, 20 parents, and 124 children participated in interviews and focus group discussions (Figure). At baseline, child participation rates were 65.9% (n = 475) for program schools and 38.5% (n = 289) for comparison schools, whereas parent participation rates were 49.6% (n = 326) for the program group and 31.5% (n = 236) for the comparison group. Retention rates at follow-up for children were 75.8% (n =
Discussion
Children’s increased willingness to try new foods emerged as a dominant theme in all of the interviews, focus group discussions, and class observations from the program schools. Statistical evidence in the child-reported data of this program effect supported these qualitative findings and showed that the odds of reporting they were always willing to try new foods was around twice as great for children in the program group compared with the comparison group. Cooking and then sharing the meals
Implications for Research and Practice
The strength of the findings in terms of children’s increased willingness to try new foods provides preliminary evidence of the success of the SAKG Program in achieving its primary objective, and is consistent with relevant theoretical frameworks and the existing limited evidence base. Nevertheless, the link between increased willingness to try new foods and increased fruit and vegetable intake is inconclusive. Although changed dietary intake is not an aim of the SAKG Program, the seriousness
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