Week 6: Close to Home (Eating Locally!)

For this week's environmental exploration, we talked about how food gets from the farm to the grocery store to our plate.

In our discussion, we learned that shipping food long distances uses a lot of fossil fuels (for gas and refrigeration), and that food that travels long distances loses taste and nutritional value.

Then we played a guessing game to match up a food to the number of miles it traveled. We had two kinds of apples, a banana, a red pepper, and an egg.  Most kids were surprised to learn that much of the food in the grocery store travels thousands of miles from the farm where it was grown. 

Noah plays "Match the Miles"

We were also surprised to learn that food grown in the U.S. sometimes travels farther to us than food grown in other countries. One apple in our game traveled 3,000 miles from Washington state while the pepper traveled 2,000 miles from Mexico. It's important to pay attention to labels, eat what is in season, and -- whenever possible -- know who grows your food!

We discussed why grocery stores are shipping apples all the way across the country when they are in season right here in our state! And, we talked about how certain types of foods -- like some breeds of apples -- are becoming extinct. 

A N.C. apple (L) versus a Washington state apple (R)

Luckily, some places are preserving vintage apple breeds. Check out these apples, from the historic Orchard at Altapass, right here in NC. They are called King Luscious and they are HUGE (and yummy)! The King Luscious is native to our state. It was discovered near Hendersonville, NC, in the 1930s.

Elena poses with a King Luscious apple.
(Told you it was HUGE!)

Evan enjoying a slice of a King Luscious!

Finally, we made a recipe featuring North Carolina's own King Luscious apples...a healthy apple dip. 

Will (L) and George (R) enjoying NC apples with dip.

If you'd like to make the apple dip at home, here's the recipe:

Cream Cheese Apple Dip

• 1 - 8 oz. package low-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel), at room temperature
• 1/4 cup non-fat vanilla yogurt
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 6 medium apples, sliced

Directions: Combine the cream cheese, yogurt and brown sugar in a food processor and mix until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

I can't believe we have only two more weeks of Extended Day! Don't forget that next week we will meet on MONDAY because of Election Day on Tuesday. We'll be talking about the amazing world above us ... trees!