An awareness of where food comes from plays a big part in encouraging children to develop a lifelong healthy eating habit. A nice, healthy diet full of fresh veg and free of processed food can help to prevent all sorts of diseases and ailments, both physical and mental ones. And that’s exactly what we all want for our little ones, whether they’re our own children, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren or our school students.
At Rocket Gardens we think that one of the small ways we can make a big difference is in encouraging the next generations to get growing at a young age and putting them in touch with where their food comes from.
We’re of the opinion that natural foods really are the way forwards. A courgette, a runner bean or a tomato grown organically in your own veg patch, picked, prepared and popped on a plate within a matter of hours will be far more nutritious (and tastier too) than one that has been grown with the aid of chemicals and pesticides, harvested by machine and packed up in plastic before travelling several hundred miles to sit on a shelf for a day or two before being bought and put in the fridge for a few days.
This concept of eating from patch to plate from an early age has so many benefits that we can’t list them all without boring you senseless. But, just as a little taster, here are a few:
- they explore a wider range of fruit and veg
- they learn the value of food and understand better where it comes from
- they develop a respect for nature and for how we treat our precious planet
- they keep physical and active
- they develop a much healthier attitude towards food.
It all plays a huge part in their physical and mental wellbeing as they grow up and the best thing in all this is that it’s so easy to inspire children to get growing. They love it. They love the digging, the planting, the watering, the harvesting and spending time doing something outside with the people they love the most in the whole world. They even love the slugs and the caterpillars and the funny shaped carrots that come out of the ground every so often. It makes them happy, it gives them an active healthy lifestyle, a healthier diet in a world where convenience food usually prevails. And it ultimately improves their feeling of wellbeing from a very young age. What’s not to love?!