What do muffins and moose and preserves have in common, you ask? They are all good food! Mrs. Spensley’s grade 5/6s closed out Beyond Recycling with a good food potluck that included muffins, moose meat, many types of preserved jams and veggies, and much more.
The class’s final Beyond Recycling unit focused on food. They started by discussing good food, and how common foods like pizza can be good food, following the “5 N’s”, but often doesn’t. The “5 N’s” we talk about are:
· Nutritious: healthy
· Near: local
· Now: seasonal
· Naked: not packaged in disposable wrappers
· Natural: whole foods or not heavily processed
Next, the class took a field trip to visit the local Food Recovery Depot. Run by local non-profit Healthy Kimberley, we learned how the Food Recovery Depot collects food from the grocery store that isn’t selling and is approaching it’s best before date. The food is then sorted into compost, pig/farm feed, and safe for human consumption. Anything that’s still ok to eat then gets given away to local organizations like the Early Learning Center, school lunch programs, and even the general public. Huge amounts of food get recovered each year, that otherwise would end up in the landfill.
To wrap up the food unit, and celebrate the end of our Beyond Recycling program, we had a class Good Food Potluck. And wow, did they ever impress! Students made or brought in a variety of nutritious, near, now, naked, and natural food including muffins, moose meat, jams, biscuits, potato salad, salsa fruit salad and more.
To top it off, educator Ms. Kim was thanked with leftover garden potatoes and garlic. Thank you too! What a delicious way to wrap up the year!
