Tackling Nutrition with the Truesdell Trojans, Part III: An afternoon with Brainfood

This winter, DC SCORES is partnering with Common Threads to bring a curriculum on healthy eating and living tos even schools for six weeks as Winter SCORES programming. You can see updates from the schools by searching #WinterSCORES on Twitter and Instagram. Specifically, we're following the progress of Truesdell Education Campus. Follow along below.

Written by Dahlia Chaudhury
Communications Intern

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Last week, I had the unique opportunity to go to Brainfood, an organization that teaches young adults cooking skills, with the Truesdell Trojans. Brainfood led a Community Cooking Class for our students to learn a healthy recipe that they can recreate at home: creamy avocado pasta!

After riding the bus downtown to Brainfood HQ, the students were introduced to about 10 high school students who were leading the course. They explained the agenda for the day, which included a short lesson, games and, the best part, cooking!

The Community Cooking Coaches taught Truesdell students about the important food groups and healthy ways to incorporate some of all of them into meals. After a quick recap, the students stood up to play game and get their energy out before the cooking began.

The game split the room into two halves: true and false. Brainfood cooking coaches read statements about nutrition and the students had to decide whether they were true or false, and choose a side of the room based on that. 

"True or False, sucrose is a type of sugar?" is just one example of the questions asked by Community Cooking Coaches.

There was a mass migration of students from the false side to the true, led by a select few who remembered sucrose from their sugar unit.

"Correct, now lets get cooking!"

The students were then split up into small groups of about five and paired with two coaches. Each cooking station had all the ingredients for the creamy avocado pasta: avocado, olive oil, salt and pepper, corn, cauliflower, tomato, and water. 

The "sauce" was made first. Students were able to scoop avocado into a big bowl, then after adding the other ingredients they took their bowls to the blender station. They learned how to "pulse" the blender and that if their sauces were too chunky or dry to add more water to help smooth it out. The finished product looked delicious!

After each group had their sauce done, they added whole wheat pasta, corn, tomatoes and cauliflower to add some veggies to the meal.

Everyone took a turn mixing everything up, and then the coaches took the finished product to be plated. While that happened, Truesdell students learned how to wash dishes properly in a kitchen: it requires teamwork and hands at all stations (rinsing, scrubbing, drying and stacking). They were also able to try out the special industrial faucet!

Once everything had been washed, everyone filed into a classroom to taste their creation! Students all tried their group's pasta, but when they had finished that they were able to try other groups to give a look into how different things can change with just slight differences. They tried their pasta with hot sauce, which garnered very mixed reactions.

Eventually, everyone was stuffed with creamy avocado pasta and we loaded the buses to head back to Truesdell. All the students had a fantastic time, and now know an easy recipe they can make at home thats nutritious and delicious. A huge thank you Brainfood DC for such an amazing experience for all the students!

Tackling Nutrition with the Truesdell Trojans, Part II: Good fats

This winter, DC SCORES is partnering with Common Threads to bring a curriculum on healthy eating and living tos even schools for six weeks as Winter SCORES programming. You can see updates from the schools by searching #WinterSCORES on Twitter and Instagram. Specifically, we're following the progress of Truesdell Education Campus. Follow along below.

Written by Dahlia Chaudhury
Communications Intern

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At 4:15, just like the previous week, students began funneling into the classroom to begin their time with DC SCORES. Their The Kitchen Times for the day was headlined: "Is Fat a Part of a Healthy Diet?" It outlined the good and the bad about fats and gave the students some new vocabulary like unsaturated fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol.

The writing coach, Cailin Eisele, began the lesson on Good Fats vs. Bad Fats. She explained how healthy fats are helpful to the body and nutritious, even though fats have a bad rep.

"What kinds of fats do you think are bad fats?" she asked the class.

Shouts of junk foods filled the room:

"Pizza!"

"Donuts!"

The class quickly realized all their favorite foods were classified as bad, or trans fats. After the lesson, the students did an activity on classifying good fats. They were given a riddle and had to decipher, from a word bank, which healthy fat the riddle was describing.

An example was "I am the cornerstone in guacamole." The answer? Avocado!

The last activity for the day involved looking at nutrition labels to find the amount of fat in students' favorite unhealthy foods. They were given a sheet that contained six common unhealthy foods, told to pick their favorite, and then find a friend to compare with.

Wilmer R. picked cheddar cheese; "It had nine grams of fat, which is a lot," he told me.

After everyone had shared their findings, the students packed up to head home.

Although there was no snack, the Trojans were excited for a special treat later in the week -- a visit Brainfood DC! Stay tuned!!

Tackling Nutrition with the Truesdell Trojans, Part I

This winter, DC SCORES is partnering with Common Threads to bring a curriculum on healthy eating and living to seven schools for six weeks as Winter SCORES programming. You can see updates from the schools by searching #WinterSCORES on Twitter and Instagram. Specifically, we're following the progress of Truesdell Education Campus. Follow along below.

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Written by Dahlia Chaudhury
Communications Intern

The afternoon started with students trickling into the classroom and being assigned tables to share for the day’s activities. They began by doing a short reading in The Kitchen Times, a “newspaper” that focused on nutrition. Once all the students were in, seated, and quiet, the lesson began.

The writing coach, Emily Adams, asked the students what they know about proteins.

“They give you muscles!” came from the back of the room.

The lesson for the day was on the three different types of proteins, and the students learned to differentiate pretty quickly.

Their next task was to play a card game with the people at their tables. The cards all had different examples of proteins, such as chicken or soy beans, and when students got four of a kind of one type of protein, they had to shout “protein!”

Soon the room was filled with shouts of “protein!” but not all those who called out had the correct four-of-a-kind.

“Beans and chicken aren’t the same!” shouted one boy.

The snack of the day was a fun one; the students received cheese sticks and a small bunch of grapes. They were also given a knife and a skewer to make their own grape and cheese kabobs. KABOBS! Students cut their cheese into varying sizes and popped them onto their skewer alternating with grapes. The finished product was a big hit, and many said they would definitely be recreating the snack at home.

Since this was my first time taking part in a Winter SCORES program, I asked around to see what they had been learning thus far to fill myself in.

When asked what the best snack they had made this season was, April said, “I forgot what it’s called, but it was greek yogurt, coconut, honey, and lime with strawberries. You could really taste the coconut because it was shredded.”

April also told me she was excited to know more about nutrition labels because “then when we go home or go to the store, we don’t get all the junk...if we just eat junk food we won’t be able to play as well in our soccer games.”

The lesson will definitely assist the Trojans as they prepare for the upcoming spring soccer season, when healthy proteins are, no doubt, a must have.

As the day wrapped up, the students finished their snacks and cleaned their spaces. The student with the cleanest space and sitting the quietest received the full bag of extra grapes. The quick 45 minutes of programming was over, and it was time for the students to go home.

Winter SCORES is keeping the students on track for their soccer season and teaching them essential nutritional knowledge so that they may live happier, healthier lives.