Food education in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor.
Compost System Research
The main objective of the compost system research project was to find a composting system that does not attract animals, produces good quality compost and educates families about waste reduction and sustainable gardening practices.
The five composting systems tested were built by volunteers and includede: vermiculture (worm bins), rotating bins, 3-bin design, a pit system and a compost tower.
Healthy Pregnancy Outreach
Squamish and Pemberton
604-892-5796 ext. 239
The Healthy Pregnancy Outreach, also known as the Canadian Prenatal Nutrition Program is a free program designed to assist women in maintaining good health and having healthy babies. The focus is on food supplements, nutritional counselling, support, education, referral to other services, and counselling to pregnant women.
Please contact Suzie Soman for more information and to register
Howe Sound Secondary School — Professional Cook’s Training
Howe Sound Secondary School offers a professional cook’s training program for students for credit. The program is offered in partnership with Vancouver Community College.
This college level course will cover Level 1 of the Provincial Cooking Curriculum. This course is designed to provide the student with a solid basic understanding of the Culinary Arts and its practical fundamentals. The graduate should be instantly employable and able to be successful in almost any kind of professional kitchen.
Costs for this program are minimal (materials and supplies only) as it is funded through ACE-IT, a new industry certification program for BC high schools.
Pemberton Children’s Centre — Nutritional Snacks and Meals Workshops
The workshops aimed to share ideas with parents for healthy snacks and meals for children aged 0 to 6. Putting children First (PCC) hosted two evening workshops–October 15 and November 2 6, each 2 hours long, and both led by a VCH Community Nutritionist. The issues explored were:
- The feeding relationship–never force a child to eat or reward your child with food.
- Parents decide what food is served and when
- Children decide whether and how much to eat
- Role modeling to help the child eat a variety of healthy food
- Aim to eat meals together as a family
- Timing — offer 3 meals and 1 to 3 snacks each day to keep up with your toddler’s high energy needs
- Meal planning — planning in advance makes it easier to fit healthy eating into your busy day and helps curb impulsive shopping and spending
- Canada’s good guide–include foods from at least 3 food groups for each meal, and include foods from at least 2 groups for each snack
- Ideas and recipes for snacks and meals
Participants did food preparation and received copies of the Healthy Start Model Menu Recipe Book.
Pemberton Meadow Childcare — Healthy Snacks
The goal of the project was to encourage and support parents to provide healthy snacks and meals to children aged 2.5 to 5 years. Two workshops on healthy foods for preschoolers were delivered to parents and caregivers. The focus was healthy lunch and snacks that are easy and affordable. Dinner and childminding were offered to make it easier for parents to attend.
“One fun aspect of the workshop was demonstrating how much sugar is in drinks. For this I put out an assortment of drinks and then sugar cubes equal to the amount of sugar that is in each drink. As this is very visual it works well with parents. I also showed some possible treats that would go into the children’s lunches. We compared 2 oreos to 7 arrowroot crackers to 10 rice crackers. The two oreos had 3 times as much fat. Another focus of tihs was that children would be happy with the arrowroots or the rice crackers. How parents present it makes a difference.”
Skatin First Nation — Head of the Lake School — Traditional Food Preservation
The project started with a proposal to purchase four food dehydrators and $120 worth of seeds and blueberry bushes. Due to a staff change, the proposal was reframed to focus on the more traditional food preservation approach of smoking. A $500 Bradley smoker was puchased instead. The project includes a child and youth education program about preserving salmon and related cultural teachings.