Many New Year’s resolutions center around eating healthier or adding more vegetables to your plate and for good reason. Nutrition is an important part of overall health that unfortunately isn’t always prioritized. For kids and adults alike, an effective way to enjoy eating your veggies and fruits is to plant a garden! 

The winter months don’t provide many opportunities to get outside in the garden but, our SYG activity, Phytonutrients: The Vegetable and Fruit Rainbow (also available in a pre-K version for our younger learners) is a fun way to talk about nutrition now and get your class excited about gardening in the spring. 

Phytonutrients are plant based chemicals that help protect the plant from pests and environmental dangers while the plant is growing. They also help support numerous health systems in humans and other animals once the vegetable or fruit is consumed. 

Phytonutrients are also what naturally give vegetables and fruits their beautiful pigment or color. Each color represents a different phytonutrient, so by eating different colors of vegetables and fruits, you can be assured that you’re getting a wide array of phytonutrients too. 

Looking for ways to help kids eat their vegetables? Check out this post from The Natural Nurturer blog and pay special attention to #1 on the list…Plant a Garden!

And remember last week when we highlighted Gabriel’s Chimichurri recipe? It goes wonderful on vegetables, so whip up a batch and eat your veggies!