It is never too early to teach the little ones the value of good food.
This is not just a cliché, but the result of a research conducted by Ipsos for the Cirfood District Observatory, with the aim of identifying the needs and expectations of school canteens and identifying potential areas for improvement.
The survey involved a sample of 150 primary school teachers in Italy, whose role is also fundamental during the lunch break: 45-60 minutes necessary to create an educational context in which the culture of food is valued, both from the point of view from a nutritional point of view both as regards the pleasure of being at the table with companions.
The meal, in fact, is part of the educational and didactic activities provided by the Ministry of Education, and this is no coincidence: Save The Children states how the school catering service contributes to combating food poverty and allows to ensure at least one meal healthy, complete and balanced daily for all school-age children and teens.
The canteen also becomes a physical place where sharing and conviviality are placed at the center of real training projects that involve nutrition experts, teachers and parents, and which often translate into measures to support the psychophysical development of pupils and students, interventions on '' education to taste, awareness of sustainability issues, conscious consumption and the fight against food waste, as well as promoting the discovery of other cultures.
Good food education can therefore become a game, a didactic tool, a discovery, even a creative laboratory in which it is possible to create a synergy between teachers and students in order to acquire sustainable cultural and behavioral models, enhancing issues such as ecology , respect for the environment, agriculture, and the close interconnection between all the components that, in the future, will positively influence long-term food choices.
In addition to this, the drafting of the new Minimum Environmental Criteria (Cam) dates back to 2021, established by the Ministry of the Environment and the Protection of the Territory and the Sea, for which school canteens will therefore have to increase the share of organic food, considered fundamental. in the first phase of development thanks to their nutritional characteristics such as, for example, the higher content of proteins and essential fatty acids of milk derivatives.
Building a healthy diet today contributes to everyone's well-being tomorrow.
