LEARNING THAT HEALTHY EATING IS TASTY TOO!

Middle School Health teacher Jodi Maurici has been a long-time role model of practicing what she teachers. Recently, she organized an activity that was extremely well-received by both her students and their parents. “I challenged a number of students to give up all added sugar for two weeks and that went viral as well with parents and families jumping on the bandwagon with their students.” 

To help the students find better choices with healthy alternatives, Mrs. Maurici offered classroom instruction for several weeks. She demonstrated how to make healthy, low- or no-sugar and low- or no-fat foods in the Middle School kitchen-lab to give her students “a taste” of easy meals and simple snacks. “Healthy doesn’t always mean gross,” one student remarked in surprised delight after tasting the results. 

It was a revelation to many. There were numerous student endorsements about the healthy-eating project. Tyler Schaefer noted, “I never thought something that was really healthy for you could taste so good! When I was watching the food being prepared, I saw all the healthy items put into it and thought it was going to taste horrible, but the food actually came out really good.”

“I was kinda expecting it to taste like broccoli or brussel sprouts,” Luca DeStefaro said, “but I enjoyed the food and drinks. I might start making them myself.”

Kayal Huisman commented, “I think the cooking activities were a nice and fun way to learn new healthy snack recipes. My favorite cooking recipe was the healthy ice cream. It was a very fun and cool experience to make snacks in class. I have already made the healthy cookies at home, and my family loved them. It is not only good, but it is fun to make these recipes. I think it is great that they are healthy but still taste great.”

Aidan McCullough remarked, “personally, I would say that my teacher, Mrs. Maurici, was very creative with how she thought of these recipes,” while James Anderson agreed adding, “I thought it was very generous of Mrs. Maurici to make food for us, even though it was after lunch!”

In fact, the whole concept of healthy cooking caught on so well that when the parents discovered what their children were learning, they emailed Mrs. Maurici for other ideas and recipes they could make at home.

By the end of the project the general consensus was clear. Mrs. Maurici’s lessons for eating healthy were so easy to make and delicious that her students (and their parents) ate it up!