Name: One woman’s mission to inspire a love of veg in a generation
Uploaded: 2023-11-02T15:27:21.679Z
Duration: 673.71

Overcoming Food Insecurity in One of Californias Largest School Districts V4.mp4

Overcoming Food Insecurity in One of Californias Largest School Districts V4.vtt

English

{{00:00:00}}
Hi, I'm Amber Stott, and I am the
founder and chief food genius of

{{00:00:03}}
the nonprofit Food Literacy Center.

{{00:00:05}}
And we inspire kids to
eat their vegetable.

{{00:00:14}}
I think my initial interest in
food started when I was just a

{{00:00:23}}
little kid and being able to go
out into my yard in rural Illinois.

{{00:00:28}}
pick an apple or a pear off a tree
go out to the rhubarb patch and

{{00:00:33}}
help mum harvest rhubarb to make
any number of amazing desserts.

{{00:00:38}}
So that's where it all started.

{{00:00:40}}
And then as an adult I really  starting
to realise as, you know, Homnivore's

{{00:00:47}}
Dilemma was coming out and all these
books were starting to sweep through

{{00:00:53}}
our, I don't know, our consciousness
about our broken food system.

{{00:00:58}}
And I realised that
there is an intersection.

{{00:01:02}}
With food and pretty much every cause
that I care about whether that's women's

{{00:01:07}}
issues or the environment or health.

{{00:01:10}}
And so if you really look into food  at a
deeper level we can really start improving

{{00:01:18}}
the world around us through our food.

{{00:01:20}}
So I started Food Literacy Center.

{{00:01:22}}
In 2011 to inspire kids to eat their
vegetables and what really got me

{{00:01:27}}
started is that I started to read more
books and start to become really more

{{00:01:32}}
aware about our broken food system
and quite frankly, it made me mad and

{{00:01:36}}
I needed to do something about it.

{{00:01:38}}
And when I started to explore
in our in my own community.

{{00:01:41}}
What was happening?

{{00:01:43}}
Where were the gaps?

{{00:01:43}}
What was needed?

{{00:01:45}}
You know, there's this spike in
childhood obesity across the nation.

{{00:01:49}}
And in Sacramento, it's
40%, which is quite high.

{{00:01:53}}
And when I would talk to folks at the
food bank or urban farms they would

{{00:02:00}}
share with me that, you know, they were
trying to get folks to eat healthier.

{{00:02:04}}
But there was a lack of interest
and a lack of knowledge of folks not

{{00:02:08}}
really knowing what to do with that
raw zucchini or that raw eggplant.

{{00:02:12}}
And I thought, oh wow, because I grew up
cooking I'm not a chef, but I'm a home

{{00:02:17}}
cook, and, and that's really the knowledge
that we need two generations of Americans

{{00:02:22}}
don't know what to do
with a raw vegetable.

{{00:02:25}}
And so, so that's why I started
Food Literacy Center because I

{{00:02:28}}
thought, let's start with kids.

{{00:02:30}}
And hopefully we can have a whole
generation that grows up knowing

{{00:02:33}}
what to do with fruits and vegetables
and can protect their health.

{{00:02:39}}
We go into Title one or low income
elementary schools and we teach

{{00:02:43}}
hands on cooking and nutrition.

{{00:02:45}}
This is really important because
USDA wants our kids eating two to

{{00:02:48}}
three cups of vegetables per day,
but only 4 percent of kids are

{{00:02:52}}
protecting their health by doing so.

{{00:02:54}}
And the result of this is that we
have high rates of childhood obesity.

{{00:02:58}}
And so if we can get kids at a
very young age to fall in love with

{{00:03:02}}
fruits and vegetables, hopefully
they will grow up to be healthy

{{00:03:06}}
eaters and protect their health.

{{00:03:08}}
We are trying to change kids
knowledge, attitude, and

{{00:03:11}}
behaviour toward eating healthy.

{{00:03:13}}
So a lot of kids for example, want
to say things like, Ew and gross

{{00:03:17}}
anytime you bring them something new.

{{00:03:19}}
So we have a methodology, a set
of broccoli boundaries and radish

{{00:03:24}}
routines that we have developed over
the years that create an environment

{{00:03:29}}
for setting up our kids for success.

{{00:03:31}}
So for example, one of our broccoli
boundaries is don't yuck my yum.

{{00:03:36}}
And what that means is, you
know, just because you didn't

{{00:03:39}}
like something, it might be your
neighbor's very favourite thing.

{{00:03:42}}
And we don't want to
hurt anybody's feelings.

{{00:03:44}}
So don't yuck my yum.

{{00:03:46}}
So what we do is we introduce kids to
a new fruit or vegetable every week.

{{00:03:50}}
And we try to get them
to be food adventurers.

{{00:03:53}}
We're trying to have them change
their attitude toward that healthy

{{00:03:57}}
food so that they'll start consuming
it and that they'll build a behaviour

{{00:04:01}}
of eating that that will become a
lifelong habit and protect their health.

{{00:04:05}}
And then we send them
home with the recipe.

{{00:04:07}}
And with recipe kits, so that they can
replicate what they've just learned in our

{{00:04:11}}
program back at home with their families.

{{00:04:18}}
We work really closely with the Central
Kitchen, which is essentially the school's

{{00:04:22}}
food nutrition program, or school lunch.

{{00:04:25}}
And so in our school district, there are
very high rates of food and nutrition

{{00:04:31}}
insecurity, so very high participation
in the free and reduced lunch program

{{00:04:36}}
of kids who don't necessarily get enough
to eat at home, but at school they do.

{{00:04:40}}
They have access to salad bars,
they have access to a wonderful

{{00:04:43}}
school meal program, and they often
eat three meals a day in school.

{{00:04:47}}
And so the Central Kitchen was built
and designed in the last couple of

{{00:04:52}}
years, right around the same time as
Food Literacy Center was building its

{{00:04:55}}
new cooking school, because in our
school district, Sacramento City Unified

{{00:04:59}}
School District, There are, most of the
kitchens are heat and serve, and that

{{00:05:05}}
makes you as a school district reliant
on pre packaged food that gets warmed up.

{{00:05:10}}
And so, instead of buying that from
someone else and you don't know what's

{{00:05:14}}
in it, and maybe they're using funny
ingredients with a central kitchen,

{{00:05:19}}
you take on that responsibility.

{{00:05:21}}
You are preparing those meals and
you can make them scratch and fresh

{{00:05:26}}
and use local farm ingredients, and
then they're sending those to their

{{00:05:30}}
various schools in the district so
that it's always fresh and local.

{{00:05:35}}
The Food Literacy Center and the
Central Kitchen partner pretty

{{00:05:37}}
closely, so every single  month.

{{00:05:40}}
We talk about what foods are going on the
salad bars in the school lunch program.

{{00:05:45}}
And then those same foods, we
try to make sure that we're

{{00:05:48}}
using in our cooking program.

{{00:05:49}}
So we call them vegetable
of the month, for example.

{{00:05:53}}
And so if they're using broccoli
and they're putting it in the

{{00:05:56}}
salad bar, then we're trying to
put broccoli in front of our kids.

{{00:06:00}}
And we have been told that in the schools
where we have our cooking program the

{{00:06:05}}
students are more likely to select a wider
variety of fruits and vegetables off that

{{00:06:11}}
salad bar, so we're pretty proud of that.

{{00:06:17}}
Some of the impacts from our program,
we measure what we do so that we know

{{00:06:20}}
if our program is a success or not.

{{00:06:22}}
And so every single day when we give
our kids the opportunity to taste a new

{{00:06:26}}
fruit or vegetable, we actually take
a box, yes or no, and they taste it.

{{00:06:30}}
And in our program, we average,
and we're in 19 schools with

{{00:06:36}}
about 100 kids per school.

{{00:06:38}}
So 2, 000 students, 94 percent of them.

{{00:06:41}}
are tasting a new fruit or
vegetable with us every single week.

{{00:06:44}}
And they tell us it's one of
their very favorite things.

{{00:06:47}}
About 70 percent of our kids are
going home and requesting the

{{00:06:50}}
foods that they taste in our class.

{{00:06:53}}
The financing for these projects very
complicated, but essentially at some

{{00:06:59}}
point the school district put a measure
on the ballot so that the public could

{{00:07:04}}
vote whether or not to provide more tax
dollars to building a central kitchen.

{{00:07:10}}
And so this bond was passed, and that was
the pot of money then that was set aside

{{00:07:14}}
and earmarked for this central kitchen.

{{00:07:16}}
And so then when Food Literacy
Center came into the picture as

{{00:07:19}}
well  that project sort of got
folded in with the central kitchen.

{{00:07:24}}
This has been a very long process.

{{00:07:27}}
It has not been easy.

{{00:07:29}}
It's a project that's a perfect
example of government gone right

{{00:07:34}}
and that doesn't happen always but
you need a lot of persistence and

{{00:07:39}}
a lot of people from the community.

{{00:07:42}}
I mean it wasn't just Food Literacy
Center as a solo non profit, it

{{00:07:48}}
wasn't just the school lunch program.

{{00:07:51}}
All the school board members I
was actually serving on several

{{00:07:55}}
different roles in my own community.

{{00:07:57}}
So I was a journalist writing a regular
column and trying to point out to the

{{00:08:02}}
readers of those publications what
was broken about our food system.

{{00:08:06}}
We had tours as community activists
that we would take the school board

{{00:08:11}}
members to the school lunch program and
say, look here's the warehouse that's

{{00:08:16}}
literally sinking into the ground.

{{00:08:19}}
Please take this bond money and fix
this, right., so it was a whole bunch

{{00:08:25}}
of different people from community
activists to journalists to donors

{{00:08:30}}
and philanthropists and different
companies that came to the table and,

{{00:08:34}}
and committed that they were going
to bring money to the table as well.

{{00:08:37}}
When you have a cause that everybody
really cares in, you know, kids

{{00:08:42}}
eating healthy is a pretty easy win.

{{00:08:45}}
Then, then you can come together
and make something like this happen.

{{00:08:53}}
You can start at any number of
entry points, but I think the

{{00:08:58}}
education piece is really key.

{{00:09:00}}
And, and for example, Chef Alice Waters,
she has a program in Berkeley, California.

{{00:09:06}}
She invited our school board members
to come visit that program, for example

{{00:09:10}}
so other leaders who have existing
programs, you know, go and see what

{{00:09:15}}
they're doing and see the example.

{{00:09:18}}
So if you see one school district
can do it, then maybe it will inspire

{{00:09:21}}
the leaders in your school district
to believe they can do it too.

{{00:09:24}}
In the future, I do hope that now
that we have this facility, so

{{00:09:29}}
our school district built us a 4,
500 square foot cooking school.

{{00:09:33}}
And it's our non profit's headquarters.

{{00:09:36}}
We have a one acre student farm.

{{00:09:38}}
We see that the students that are
at the elementary school next door,

{{00:09:42}}
on the days when they have our food
literacy program, there's fewer tardies.

{{00:09:46}}
There's higher rates of attendance.

{{00:09:49}}
So less absenteeism.

{{00:09:51}}
And we're hoping also, we're only in our,
we just finished our first academic year.

{{00:09:55}}
We're starting our second academic
year in this new facility.

{{00:09:59}}
So we're also hoping that we'll
see improved academic performance.

{{00:10:02}}
Obviously, if kids are coming to school
more,  hopefully they're learning more.

{{00:10:05}}
Also, we know that when kids learn
complicated subjects like science and

{{00:10:09}}
math, by learning them hands on through
things like gardening and cooking, they're

{{00:10:13}}
more likely to retain that information.

{{00:10:15}}
But I also hope that government
sees this model working at a

{{00:10:20}}
state level, at a national level.

{{00:10:22}}
And that they see that this is a different
way of educating, and that they begin

{{00:10:27}}
to bring back programs like this.

{{00:10:29}}
We don't have home ec programs anymore.

{{00:10:31}}
I do hope that government
sees the successes, and I do

{{00:10:35}}
hope that they continue to
prioritise this type of project.

{{00:10:39}}
That we continue to see funding
being prioritised in this direction

{{00:10:43}}
because it really is going to
take some sustained funding.

{{00:10:47}}
We're a 501c3 non profit.

{{00:10:49}}
All of the programs that we provide
in our school, we are raising the

{{00:10:53}}
money to do that from our community.

{{00:10:55}}
So, the school district is
not paying for our programs.

{{00:10:58}}
We're fundraising for those.

{{00:11:00}}
But eventually, this is something
truly that school districts and

{{00:11:04}}
states and national departments
of education should be looking at.

Hi, I'm Amber Stott, and I am the
founder and chief food genius of

And we inspire kids to
eat their vegetable.

I think my initial interest in
food started when I was just a

little kid and being able to go
out into my yard in rural Illinois.

pick an apple or a pear off a tree
go out to the rhubarb patch and

help mum harvest rhubarb to make
any number of amazing desserts.

And then as an adult I really  starting
to realise as, you know, Homnivore's

Dilemma was coming out and all these
books were starting to sweep through

our, I don't know, our consciousness
about our broken food system.

And I realised that
there is an intersection.

With food and pretty much every cause
that I care about whether that's women's

And so if you really look into food  at a
deeper level we can really start improving

In 2011 to inspire kids to eat their
vegetables and what really got me

started is that I started to read more
books and start to become really more

aware about our broken food system
and quite frankly, it made me mad and

And when I started to explore
in our in my own community.

You know, there's this spike in
childhood obesity across the nation.

And in Sacramento, it's
40%, which is quite high.

And when I would talk to folks at the
food bank or urban farms they would

share with me that, you know, they were
trying to get folks to eat healthier.

But there was a lack of interest
and a lack of knowledge of folks not

really knowing what to do with that
raw zucchini or that raw eggplant.

And I thought, oh wow, because I grew up
cooking I'm not a chef, but I'm a home

cook, and, and that's really the knowledge
that we need two generations of Americans

don't know what to do
with a raw vegetable.

And so, so that's why I started
Food Literacy Center because I

And hopefully we can have a whole
generation that grows up knowing

what to do with fruits and vegetables
and can protect their health.

We go into Title one or low income
elementary schools and we teach

This is really important because
USDA wants our kids eating two to

three cups of vegetables per day,
but only 4 percent of kids are

And the result of this is that we
have high rates of childhood obesity.

And so if we can get kids at a
very young age to fall in love with

fruits and vegetables, hopefully
they will grow up to be healthy

We are trying to change kids
knowledge, attitude, and

So a lot of kids for example, want
to say things like, Ew and gross

So we have a methodology, a set
of broccoli boundaries and radish

routines that we have developed over
the years that create an environment

So for example, one of our broccoli
boundaries is don't yuck my yum.

And what that means is, you
know, just because you didn't

like something, it might be your
neighbor's very favourite thing.

And we don't want to
hurt anybody's feelings.

So what we do is we introduce kids to
a new fruit or vegetable every week.

And we try to get them
to be food adventurers.

We're trying to have them change
their attitude toward that healthy

food so that they'll start consuming
it and that they'll build a behaviour

of eating that that will become a
lifelong habit and protect their health.

And then we send them
home with the recipe.

And with recipe kits, so that they can
replicate what they've just learned in our

program back at home with their families.

We work really closely with the Central
Kitchen, which is essentially the school's

And so in our school district, there are
very high rates of food and nutrition

insecurity, so very high participation
in the free and reduced lunch program

of kids who don't necessarily get enough
to eat at home, but at school they do.

They have access to salad bars,
they have access to a wonderful

school meal program, and they often
eat three meals a day in school.

And so the Central Kitchen was built
and designed in the last couple of

years, right around the same time as
Food Literacy Center was building its

new cooking school, because in our
school district, Sacramento City Unified

School District, There are, most of the
kitchens are heat and serve, and that

makes you as a school district reliant
on pre packaged food that gets warmed up.

And so, instead of buying that from
someone else and you don't know what's

in it, and maybe they're using funny
ingredients with a central kitchen,

You are preparing those meals and
you can make them scratch and fresh

and use local farm ingredients, and
then they're sending those to their

various schools in the district so
that it's always fresh and local.

The Food Literacy Center and the
Central Kitchen partner pretty

We talk about what foods are going on the
salad bars in the school lunch program.

And then those same foods, we
try to make sure that we're

So we call them vegetable
of the month, for example.

And so if they're using broccoli
and they're putting it in the

salad bar, then we're trying to
put broccoli in front of our kids.

And we have been told that in the schools
where we have our cooking program the

students are more likely to select a wider
variety of fruits and vegetables off that

salad bar, so we're pretty proud of that.

Some of the impacts from our program,
we measure what we do so that we know

And so every single day when we give
our kids the opportunity to taste a new

fruit or vegetable, we actually take
a box, yes or no, and they taste it.

Change-makers

Case Study

At the top of the list of global sustainable development challenges is one essential thing every individual, government or business should be concerned about–how to address food insecurity. Our guest Amber Stott has decided to make that her purpose in life!

Watch as she explains how she went from a food activist to the brains (and hands) behind the Food Literacy Center and how, in partnership with the Central Kitchen in Sacramento, CA, she's been baking results in food literacy for children, nutritious meals for an entire community, and a healthy future for an entire generation.