Jamie Oliver and Farm to School

Jamie Oliver has been in Canada this past week promoting his new book 'Everyday Super Food' and a new TV show 'Jamie's Super Food'.  Apart from posting wonderful photos on his Instagram account of Nova Scotia, he had a few words to say about the current state of our food education. Check out what he said here .

Justin Trudeau has a lot on his plate when it comes to food education. Many have no idea where certain foods come from, some don't care as long as it tastes good and is at the right price. I foresee a long road ahead for the new Prime Minister.
But changes are afoot and a little silver lining in Trudeaus pocket is the 'Farm to School' concept rolling out across North America. This food fundraiser recently piloted in a select few schools in Nova Scotia and was a great success, to the schools and farmers. The idea is local farms sign up with the Farm to School network and offer CSA type boxes to schools, with a percentage of the sale going directly back to the school. Win Win!

Many other provinces across Canada and most states in the US have similar farm to school initiatives.
Check your province/state out here and get your box of goodies purchased and help your local farms and schools in the process.

Nova Scotia
Manitoba
Ontario
British Columbia
US

If your province does a great job Farm to Schooling and isn't listed here, send me a comment and I'll load it up.

Welcome to Happy Food Happy Soul

Hey there, thanks for stopping by.
Over here at Happy Food Happy Soul we are on a mission for everyone to experience good food that makes them happy to the soles of their feet! Especially the generation of teeny tiny feet. Nurture them with good food when they are small and when they grow up, they will create a market that demands good food. And by 'good food' I mean the likes of Non GMO, heritage grains, no additives or fluorescent colours, natural sweeteners, absolutely nothing that resembles a POGO or a smart price chicken nugget! 

My name is Rachael and I am a wife to an extraordinarily hard working house builder husband, and a mother to two little boys 3 + 6.
My passion for food has arrived as a result of having children, which I'm sure happens to many. I have always loved food, and mostly cooked my breakfast lunch and dinners from scratch in adulthood, (with the occasional fast food hangover cure in there) but I feel my desire to make meals even better, since my eldest started school and I was presented with the awful school lunch menu. Chicken burgers, garden salad, grilled cheese. Really? A kid is going to order a garden salad??? I think that was just put on there to say 'see we are serving healthy food'. A group of wonderful ladies all had the same thoughts as me.....'it'll be packed lunches then!" But one lady stood up and said lets form a Nutrition Committee and start a change. Since then, we have removed all package items from our breakfast programme. No yoghurt tubes, granola bars and juice cups. Now we have healthy muffins and pancakes, boiled eggs, cheese and crackers and copious amounts of fruit. And the bizarre thing is, the children love it! Who'd have thought.!? They don't even notice that the packaged rubbish is no longer available as an early morning 'treat'.  And I'm sure the teachers are thankful for the minimal amounts of  sugar gracing their classrooms at 8 o'clock in the morning.

I also work at the most wonderful daycare serving up the kids snacks and lunch. I would never have thought I'd end up cooking for kids, but I actually do enjoy it. The most rewarding part of it is, apart from seeing kids accustomed to fruit loops and burgers, eat buckwheat fish bites, is the fact that we adhere to the Canadian Nutritional Government Guidelines. I tell you, its hard fitting everything in in a day, but we do it and it doesn't cost us the earth and it also doesn't take any longer than shoving a chicken burger in the oven and buttering some buns! Unfortunately the guidelines are there as that, just a guide, so rarely anyone sticks to them.  But here on this blog I want to try and make that change. Or at least make people aware of how simple it will be to make changes, no matter how small.
So keep your eyes peeled for kiddy friendly recipes and exciting new things happening in the Canadian education system. Its an exciting time to be jumping on this band wagon.
Jamie Oliver WE NEED YOU!!!