Jars.

Most folks find it interesting that I jar all my food. I mean, pretty much all of it. There are a couple reasons why I do this:

1. It removes labels and brands from food. In general, I buy organic, healthy foods as much as possible. When you think about foster kids who are surviving, brand doesn’t matter. The last thing they need to assume is that to make good food it has to be organic or expensive. It doesn’t. At the end of any given day, noodles are noodles.

2. No labels and no branding makes a kid really have to think about what they are pulling out of the fridge, drawer or cupboard. I often hear “What is this?” accompanied by hands with jars that have similar looking ingredients. What these kids learn to do is use their senses around food; if they can’t tell by sight, use smell and if they can’t identify via smell, they resort to the taste test and sometimes, I step in to help out (often guessing myself).

Homemade.

It can be exhausting to think about making a homemade dinner every night. Let’s be honest, homemade dinner every night is a stretch. Some days call for frozen pizza, boxed mac n cheese or a bite squad delivery. However, I personally feel that those ‘some days’ should be the exception and that most days, the family is making food, together. I enjoy letting the kids pick a meal once a week and then they are in charge of making it. Skills varying, I am there to guide, praise and to keep the house from starting on fire. Letting kids cook gives them a sense of accomplishment and pride When we sit around the table and they can tell their tablemates they picked, cooked and dished this meal with love. Those are feelings that only comes from doing and achieving.

Gardening.

The next best thing to preparing food is growing it. When humans can go out to the garden, pick peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, wash them and put them in a meal or just eat as a snack.What’s even better than that? Planting the garden in the spring, picking in the late summer and canning in the fall. Exposing kids to the full lifecycle of food is not only going give them the skills they need to provide for themselves, education on what organic food is as well enjoying the fruit of their labor. Hard work pays off.