Fun and Fit in the City Event: Saturday, October 1, 2011

To everyone who is part of the Harlem Children's Zone and Promise Academy community, we would like to invite you to join us at the Fun and Fit in the City Event (presented by Target and the New York City Wine & Food Festival) Saturday, October 1st, 2011 at the Harlem Armory. There will be celebrity chefs, culinary demos, nutrition education, and fitness activities for the whole family.

FREE ZUMBA CLASSES FOR ADULTS

Wednesdays at 7:30-8:30pm
Saturdays at 10:00-11:00am
Harlem Armory
40 W. 143rd St b/t Lenox Ave & 5th Ave
RSVP to hli@hcz.org

Kitchen Wordle

Wordle you say? Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

For the serving area of the kitchen at the main building, we created a wordle not only to visually improve the serving area but also to teach the students about words we commonly use. We will also put together a key describing each words meaning.

Enjoy!

What's for lunch? September 12th 2011

Todays menu features Beef Chili, Brown Rice and Steamed Broccoli.

The beef that we use to prepare our meals is produced locally and grass fed, but what is grass fed beef?

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of grass farming is that the meat offers tremendously significant health benefits. Grass Fed Beef contains high levels of Omega 3’s—the fatty acids that can reduce cholesterol and fight heart disease. In contrast, grain-finished animals from feedlots are high in Omega 6’s—the fatty acids that can raise cholesterol levels. In addition, grass-finished beef offers 400 percent more vitamin A and E than commercial beef, and is rich in beta-carotene and conjugated linoleic acids, both major cancer inhibitors.

Most beef consumed in the US is “grain finished” at large-scale commercial feedlots. Grass-fed beef is raised and finished on an all-natural, grass diet, that results in animals that are much healthier. The cows never receive antibiotics, hormone implants or by-products, so there’s no risk of mad cow disease.

Bon Appetit!

School Garden Gears Up for New School Year!

With the new school year starting next week, everyone is busy getting ready! In the garden this means, taking stock of what's still thriving, what we can plant for the Fall season and what needs to be harvested. We have plenty to do once our Garden and Cooking Club resumes and I can't wait to see the excitement from some of our students at how the small seeds they planted in the Spring grew into gorgeous carrots, beets, melons, tomatoes, eggplants and cucumbers over the summer.

This school year we're excited to have even more nutrition education in place to help our students understand the basics of why we eat what we eat. We're also really looking forward to a Food Science and Health Fair to celebrate Food Day on October 24th along with groups from around the country. We are excited that Food Day's goal "to transform the American diet—to inspire a broad movement involving people from every corner of our land who want healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way," mirrors our own mission to make good food more accessible to our community through hands on education. To find out how your student or class can participate please send us an email and be sure to visit the Food Day website ( to learn more about how they define "real food."

As we all get ourselves back in gear for the new school year, we wanted to remind parents and students that this blog is a great place to check in on what's happening around health and wellness at Promise Academy and throughout HCZ. We also wanted to remind you that you can find our updated school cafeteria menus here, and that if your student or child needs to file a Food Allergy Action Plan you can find the forms and all the instructions for that in our FAQ section here. One final note, please remember that students are not allowed to eat outside food or drink here at HCZ and Promise Academy. As always we know that it takes a whole community to create a healthy nutrition environment and we are so grateful for your support! See you in the lunch line or the garden very soon.

Tomato Time!

This time of year is one of a gardener's favorites for the simple fact that nearly every trip outside yields some newly ripe tomatoes to pick and enjoy. It's considered common knowledge that summer tomatoes, fresh off the vine and warmed by the sun are unmatchable in taste, texture and put all those wanna-be-but-unfortunately-bland supermarket tomatoes shipped halfway around the world to shame.

The Harlem Children's Zone student gardeners have been sampling tomatoes in their raw, pure state--from tiny cherry ones to big, juicy heirloom varieties--and loving it! In our cooking club, we've made Creamy Gazpacho, Tomato Salsa, Cucumber and Tomato Salad with a classic vinaigrette, and Pan con Tomate. This round up of articles from the New York Times is a great source of ways to use your tomato harvest, whether you are gathering it in the garden or the farmer's market, enjoy!

Eating Locally and Seasonally

"Think globally, eat locally." Right now, most of the food we eat travels an average of 1500 miles from the farm to our plates. That's half way across the country! When you go into a supermarket you can buy anything you want, whenever you want it. You wouldn't even know there were seasons! But what if we ate mostly what was in season and grown in our local region? Many people think eating locally and seasonally is a good idea because it's better for communities, farmers, the environment, and our taste buds. Eating locally means adjusting our diets to nature and the seasons. It means enjoying fruits and vegetables at their peak and experimenting with new vegetables when familiar ones are out of season. Many foods grow in different places and at different times for various reasons, primarily differences in regional climates.

Growing Food, 2007 Teachers College Columbia University

Please visit NYS Dept of Agriculture and Markets for the harvest calender:
http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/HarvestCalendar.html