Lifestyle

Hellmann’s Real Food Movement

This blog post was created with Hellmann’s® and JONES Voice

Chances are while you may not know the campaign name, you’re familiar with the messaging – that’s how the best campaigns work! Hellmann’s Real Food Movement® campaign has been educating consumers on the value of real food since 2007.

In this latest phase of the campaign, Hellmann’s is looking at kids and their understanding of not only what real food is but where it comes from. Recently I had the opportunity to be part of a panel for Agriculture Saskatchewan, sharing my thoughts and opinions on food production, purchasing and my understanding of a lot of the terms thrown around in the media as of late. Part of that discussion focused on how we talk to our children about food. I relayed a story about not understanding where eggs or milk came from until about Kindergarten age – at which point I promptly stopped consuming both! The consensus was that we should be educating our children on food from an early age, based on their age and understanding of course.

Here in Saskatchewan, I’d estimate that a larger majority of children have the basics figured out than in, say, suburban Vancouver. Of course, population-wise, our numbers are small compared to larger urban centers so the overall percentage of children who understand where our food comes from in Canada isn’t what it was thirty years ago.

How do you think your kids would do if given a variety of foods and asked where they came from? I’ll take it one step further – how do you think you would do as a parent?

Recently, Hellmann’s took a group of 3 kids from Eastern Canada along with their parents to a Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon canola farm right here in Saskatchewan. They toured the farm to learn what goes into crafting the perfect jar of mayonnaise – and we got to watch it live streamed on Facebook (you can watch the video here)

I love this. Getting kids involved in understanding where our food comes from then brings the conversation home to our dinner tables with the family. Here’s another fun way our family opened a conversation up about how things grow – we made a Sprout Person!

sprout person craft

The process itself is pretty easy:

Step 1 – cut out the feet of an old pair of stockings just above the knee.
Step 2 – fill up your stocking with grass seed and sphagnum moss. Tie it into about a tennis ball size shape to make a ‘head’.
Step 3 – pinch the front of the ‘head’ to make a ‘nose’, hold in place with an elastic band.
Step 4 – Make a face, i.e. use googly eyes for the eyes, draw on a mouth, use pipe cleaner to make eyebrows or a mustache etc.
Step 5 – Glue some paper on a plastic cup and make an ‘outfit’ for your sprout head. You can even cut out a little tie etc. to dress it up.
Step 6 – Hand fill your plastic cup with water and place your ‘head’ on top, so that the stocking tail is dangling in the water.
Step 7 – Now place your sprout person on a window sill to get lots of sun. Water him/her with a spray bottle every day and watch them grow!

Hellmann's Real Food Movement

As a parent, I’ve often been gifted with a plant, or even a sunflower, from my little one at school. Teachers use this plant-in- a-cup lesson to teach the basics in science about how things grow. During the summer months, the Sprout Person is another way to foster that learning and open up discussion about our food and why it’s important to put good things in
our bodies to help us grow too.

Check out more about Hellmann’s and “Where does your food come from” by visiting Hellmann’s on Facebook.

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  • I love this! One of my best friends lives on a farm and I love to take my boys there so they can experience a little bit of what it means to produce your own food.

  • I take my children to the local greenhouses so they can see the production and meet some of the growers.

  • Most of my food comes from the garden. Planting, weeding, eating. Fresh is soooo much better. There really is a difference.

  • This is a great idea, I think I would like to teach my Sparks just where our food comes from. Great craft. We do take them to the local farm that tries to teach them how the seed turns into our food.

  • I love this! My son has visited farms before so o think he knows, I loved going to farms and the farmers market as a kid, great learning experience

  • We are fortunate that we do live near a local farm that the children have visited since they were toddlers.

  • We do plant some produce ourselves but we visit and buy many items from the local farm including meat and eggs.Fresher is better and we know where its coming from before it ends on our table

  • Most of my food comes from the Farmers market, well the fresh produce does, I love supporting our local farmers!!

  • This is a great initiative! I grew up on a farm so had the privilege of learning from an early age where my food came from.

  • We recently went to an event called “Dinner at the Dairy” and they gave the kids a tour that taught them about where our food comes from, then they served us dinner. It really was a great place to be!

    My girl also helps out in the garden so she’s familiar with that as well!

  • I loved seeing the Hellmanns commercial showcasing locally grown Canola. I bet a lot of Sask people didn’t realize those facts. We always had a garden and showed the next generation how to garden in our family. It is a tradition. My nieces & nephews would always eat their veggies because they knew we grew them ourselves.

  • Looks like there are quite a few great lessons here for our children. I love to take my son to my uncle’s farm to see how things are grown. He particularly loves watching tree sap turn into maple syrup 🙂

  • wow that is totally cool! i love this idea and it would get my girls involved. they would have such fun doing this.

  • I grew up on a farm and to this day still live in a rural setting with a large vegetable garden. Our kids are pretty food savvy

  • I think this is a great movement , I have a small garden and I bring my toddler out with me to help , I’m hoping thus stas with her

  • I think it is so important for kids to know where their food comes from. Helps to teach them about making smart choices when it comes to food. We buy local from farmers etc whenever we can.

  • It is so important. We are lucky we live near a farm that the children can visit to learn about food and we have our own vegetable garden.

  • We have a garden and I my granddaughter 3 i/2 year old granddaughter help me plant the seed this year. It was fun!

  • This is a great idea and a fun and educational project for kids and adults too. I think if you have the time, space and patience, knowledge or willingness to learn if you don’t have a green thumb to grow your own food. Wouldn’t it be nice to pick vegetables out of your own garden when you need it? I would love it!

  • My sons and my grandchildren all now how to plant a garden so they have home grown food and veggies. They were taught at an early age and they loved doing it. My grandchildren still love doing it.

  • My brother-in-law has a farm so my daughter has had the chance to collect eggs fresh from the chicken and see where beef comes from. She loves it and can’t wait until she’s old enough to go hunting. We’ve also gone mushroom picking on our other farm where we have morels.

  • most of our fresh food comes from around here locally as we live in a mostly farming community and we take drives up to the Okanagan for fresh fruits qnd veggies!

  • Awesome I take my daughter every Saturday morning to the farmers market she has always loved going with me and learning healthy eating

  • It’s true that as a parent I wouldn’t be able to answer where a lot of our foods come from; I would fail. I think I could gain just as much knowledge as my kids if I were to take a tour like that. The craft idea is cute & a great way to involve the children!

  • I try to get most of my food from locally grown sources. I grew up on a farm and think I am lucky to have. All kids should be taught about plants and how to grow them.

  • Great idea! So important to teach our kids where real food comes from. Helps build good eating habits that sustain them through life.

  • Some of our food this time of year comes right from our backyard! My girls help from seed right through to harvesting our fruits & veggies! It’s so important to know where your food is coming from.

  • I grew up in downtown Toronto so it actually took me ages to figure all this out lol Now I’m sure to take our son to places like Riverdale Farm and local markets so he can see stuff outside the grocery store.

  • The Sprout Persons are so neat. I definitely think teaching kids about where our foods came from is so important. I think I still have gaps in my knowledge about that to be honest, so I think teaching kids at an early age will set a good foundation and allows them continually learn and add to that knowledge as they grow older as well.

  • I think it’s important to teach kids where the food they eat comes from; i believe it does help to promote healthy eating and appreciation!

  • It’s so good for kids to learn more about where their food comes from! This year we started a veggie garden in our back yard… it’s small but it’s a start – and it was a lot of fun!

  • love it ! we dont have a great area for gardens so we have my daughter pick different vegis to grow in buckets each year to help her understand how a plant grows and what it needs to grow , so much fun !

  • This one’s easy: my sister-in-law and her family have two farms in Wisconsin where they grow produce, with cattle, pigs, goats and chickens they sell meat and dairy products. (They also breed horses FOR RIDING) They are also beekeepers and sell honey. One of the farms is on a lake so they catch fish for their their own eating and my brother-in-law also hunts ducks and pheasant for dining.

    Back here in the city’s metropolitan area, we grow some of our own produce and herbs. We keep very extensive herbs both indoors and out ~ as we love to cook with fresh herbs year ’round. We also grow tomatoes, zucchini, variety peppers and lettuce. There is nothing quite like eating fresh produce you have grown yourself!