Feds Spend Millions to Increase Participation in School Nutrition Programs: Giving Vegetables ‘Cool Names’ Can Help

[Geee]

CNS News:

(CNSNews.com) – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Tuesday that the federal government is giving $8 million in grants to selected public schools and daycare centers across the country to train school nutrition employees and to develop ways to get more children to participate, which could including giving vegetables “cool names.”

 

“Sometimes by naming the particular vegetables with cool names you can actually encourage young people to participate and take more of carrots than they would otherwise take, if you tell them that it’s X-Ray carrots that they’ll have X-Ray vision by eating carrots,” Vilsack said at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

 

Vilsack announced that $8 million in grants is being given to selected schools and daycare centers in the United States, with $2.4 million going to train food service workers and $5.6 million to come up with ways to market the food to the children in those schools.

 

“It may be the way in which [food] is displayed,” Vilsack said of the latter funding. “It may be who is serving it.

 

“There may be opportunities for contests and so forth that can encourage more participation,” Vilsack said.