by Jessica Silldorff
I recently had the opportunity to share EatFresh.org with two different groups of moms: teen moms at Lindsay Blended Community School in San Diego and a CalWORKs Self-Care group in Escondido. Both groups brought women together to share their successes and challenges of establishing healthy habits for themselves and for their families. Though the two groups were distinct, all of the moms I met faced similar challenges with feeding their kids healthy foods. Some voiced concerns about their kids not wanting to eat vegetables while others had specific questions about how to prep and cook meals with busy schedules.
After seeing a brief demo of EatFresh.org, the conversation changed from one of frustration to intrigue and excitement. In particular, the Teen Mom group loved our EatFresh.org Pinterest board, especially the Food Fun board where they could find ideas for making veggies look more enticing for their young kids. The CalWORKs Self-Care group loved the simplicity of EatFresh.org recipes and appreciated healthy versions of comfort foods, like Baked Flaked Chicken, and dishes that ventured beyond their standard weeknight recipes, like Filipino-Style Menudo.
Both groups were motivated to use EatFresh.org because they could immediately find easy recipes that their kids would like and solutions to their challenges for a variety of health-related topics on our Lifestyle pages. The Teen Mom group pulled up EatFresh.org on their mobile phones during the presentation, and the Self-Care group eagerly brought up EatFresh.org on the computers in the computer lab immediately after my presentation.
Both presentations ended with a Banana Sushi food demo, which was popular with everyone! It’s a simple recipe that takes just a few minutes to make and is perfect for a quick breakfast or snack for both mom and kids. As I was packing up to leave, I overheard some of the women brainstorming other ways of making the Banana Sushi, like substituting apples for the banana or dried cranberries for the raisins. Already, EatFresh.org was providing solutions to their universal desire to raise healthy families and inspire them to experiment in the kitchen.