For Future Foodies and Sticky Fingers Cooking, getting children invested in their plates is a growth field

On a warm fall morning at Notre Dame de Sion School, several parent volunteers had risen early to trim back the sweet-potato vines in the garden next to the 114-year-old private school. It was worth getting up with the sun, seeing more than 24 raised beds brimming with herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables — tomatoes and kale and peppers and sugar snap peas and carrots and radishes, all ripe and glittering with dew in the crystalline daylight. 

A third-grade class was set to dig up the sweet potatoes after the parents finished. Garden coordinator Nicole Routh, whose daughter attends the school, set out shiny handheld shovels. With the neon-green vines clipped away, several large potatoes peeked out from the dirt like tiny islands. I had first talked to Routh in the spring, and she told me that when it came to their veggies, the students almost couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. 

“The kids are always excited to see the progress on their plants,” she said. “I’ve literally seen children jumping up and down screaming with delight because their broccoli grew three inches. They’re just over the moon with joy, and it’s so cool to see.”

As a child-free adult, I had to see this to believe it. I’d watched in horror as friends’ adorable kids turned into shrieking, flailing monsters when confronted with a plate of peas, a transformation that could be halted only by cookies or, maybe, a little fruit. In these moments, I remembered my own favorite childhood snacks: Doritos, ice cream sandwiches, peanut butter cups. I ate broccoli only if it was covered in melted cheddar, and even then without enthusiasm.

But a moment later, eleven kids emerged from the school, as improbably energetic as Routh had described. As they entered the garden, each dutifully picked up a shovel and began excising the potatoes from the dirt. Some were as precise as archaeologists; others flung dirt in the air and giggled, pausing to let fat earthworms wiggle in the palms of their hands. What they shared in common was pride in these potatoes. Some cradled their newly unearthed tubers like babies; others giggled at the vegetables’ gnarled, bulbous appearance. “It looks like a butt,” one boy said.

According to volunteer Stephanie Jensen, mom to two Sion students, the garden is more than just an excuse to get outdoors and get dirty. It also helps her kids see where food comes from and take ownership in its growth. When kids plant and care for a broccoli plant themselves, they’re more likely to try it when it shows up in their lunch.

“It’s important for kids to understand that our foods should come from the ground and seeds and not from a factory,” she said. “We’re pretty lucky that we can say, ‘These tomatoes in your salad came from that garden right out there. You guys planted them, and now you get to have them in your lunch.’ ”

Later that week, the newly unearthed sweet potatoes would become fries, a treat on the weekly menu created and prepared by Sion alumna Jackie Kincaid Habiger. As co-owner of Room 39 and Sasha’s Baking Company, Habiger is a major proponent of fresh, locally grown food — a priority she kept at the fore when she founded Future Foodies, her company that serves hot lunches at both of Sion’s schools. The mother of two Sion students, Habiger works with Routh to ensure that most of what’s grown in the garden ends up on students’ lunch trays.

“You’ve gotta put the good in to get the good out,” Habiger said. “If they’re happy and healthy and fed with balanced awesome stuff,” she added, talking about the kids, “they’ll get a better education overall because they’ll be more focused and better able to contribute and pay attention.”

Listening to Habiger recite her most popular menu items, it’s easy to see why her made-from-scratch lunches are so popular with students. Once a month, she prepares breakfast for lunch, a meal that often includes French toast made with thick Farm to Market bread. Every Tuesday, she serves a Mexican-inspired dish, and her meatballs contain smartly concealed goodies such as quinoa, zucchini and carrots.

“I hide the good stuff in there, but I also don’t make it a secret,” she said. “I’ve been known to walk around with the quinoa and let the kids touch it.” 

Across the state line, Sticky Fingers Cooking is also all about young hands on fresh food. The mobile cooking school aims not only to get kids jazzed about eating healthy food, but also to show them how to prepare it. Owned by Denver chef Erin Fletter since 2011, the program found its way to Lawrence last year, with a Johnson County expansion in the works.

For Kansas development cultivator and chef-instructor Richard Wilks, the program has been a way to help kids overcome or avoid some of the challenges he faced as an overweight child. “Something I battled as a young child was obesity — I had to work extremely hard to reverse the effects that I got when I was 8 or 9 years old,” he told me. Sticky Fingers, he explained, “gets the wheel rolling at a young age that eating healthy and what we put in our body are important to a successful future. And it’s a lot of fun.”

I stopped by a class at Deerfield Elementary in Lawrence on a Monday afternoon, where 10 enthusiastic elementary school kids were preparing sweet apple slaw and lemon-apple-yogurt cakes, with yogurt glaze instead of frosting.The surprisingly sophisticated recipes use no refined sugars or nuts and can be adjusted for any allergies. 

The key to keeping kids engaged, Wilks told me, is keeping them moving, a goal he accomplishes by giving each student a task. Sitting in groups on the day I visited, the kids took turns stirring the yogurt glaze. One held a shredder while another ran an apple over its scaly blades. Another group squeezed lemon juice into a bowl. 

“There’s not one moment in the class that the kids are just sitting there having to listen for more than a couple of minutes,” Wilks said. “They are always using their hands. We’re not cooking just apple pie. We’re cooking cauliflower hummus or rainbow dragon noodles or pancakes with blueberry-reduction syrup or super kale bites or quinoa pizza bites.”

When it comes to getting kids to expand their palates — to try broccoli, for instance — Wilks starts by asking them why they don’t like it. Of course, he and the students soon figure out that the dislike stems from no specific reasons. So he encourages them to try chopping up that broccoli, then adding some salt or honey.

Wilks also employs what he calls the “no thank you” bite. “The purpose of the class isn’t to shove food down the kids’ throats that they don’t like,” he said. “We encourage one bite, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”

But in the class I attended, all of the students gladly ate their cupcakes and apple slaw, and some went back for seconds. They did make it themselves, after all, and that sense of accomplishment makes any food a little bit sweeter.