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I’m joining Sacramento’s Food Stamp Challenge! For the next week, I’ll be eating on about $4.90 per day per person. This is the approximate equivalent budget of someone on California’s CalFresh food stamp program. I’m doing this to raise awareness for California Food Literacy Center’s work.
As you may know, I founded this nonprofit to teach food literacy to low-income kids. Many of these kids live in food deserts, where access to fresh fruits and vegetables is rare. In our class, we give them a fresh piece of produce every week. Many of them have never eaten broccoli or plums before!
These mal-nutritious diets leave our community’s children burdened with obesity, a problem facing 38% of California children.
The problem is urgent!
I hope you’ll help. Please make a donation toady to help us bring food literacy classes to kids whose healthy futures depend on our education.
If we teach them healthy habits while they’re young, research shows that kids are more likely to grow up free from adult diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.
Every week, I work with 100 K-5th grade kids at a low-income school. I teach them how to cook healthy meals, to read nutrition labels, and importantly, to LOVE fruits and vegetables!
Many of these kids come from homes where food budgets are tight. That’s why I’m joining the Food Stamp Challenge. I want to raise awareness about the problem of food deserts, and how critical it is to teach families to cook affordable, healthy meals.
Join the challenge.
Help us raise awareness. Share this story with others. And make your donation today to improve kids’ health!
I’ll be sharing recipes on my site this week, and California Food Literacy Center also has a great list of low-cost meals. Here’s my first recipe—something that will feel fancy for the weekend, but won’t break your bank.
Pumpkin Oatmeal Recipe for $2.27 per serving
Sacramento is swimming in pumpkin! Beautiful, bright, speckled, striped, bumpy, smooth, orange, white, green, yellow squash and pumpkins! There’s such an array, and the ways to cook them are just as diverse. Yet sometimes, rather than burying the fruit behind curry powder or cinnamon, you just want to taste the delicious, freshness of pumpkin.
I found these delightful Sweet Dumpling Squash at our farmers market. After listening to the farmer describe them as the sweetest pumpkins around, I knew this would be a perfect breakfast. I simply sliced the darlings open, baked them in the oven, and stuffed them with my usual morning oatmeal.
What a wonderful break from the norm! The pumpkin needed no added sugar or flavoring, and really perked up my usual breakfast. Double bonus—no dishes to wash! I used the pumpkin as my bowl.
If you see these sweethearts at your market, grab a few. You won’t regret it!
Pumpkin Oatmeal Recipe
Ingredients:
2 Sweet Dumpling Squash
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 servings oatmeal
Farmers Market & Garden ingredients: pumpkin, olive oil
Supermarket ingredients: oats
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Slice the top off each pumpkin about 1 1/2 to 2 inches under the stem. Place both halves of each pumpkin flesh side down on a baking sheet lightly coated with olive oil.
Place pumpkins in oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes, or until flesh is tender when pricked with a fork.
Make oatmeal.
Scoop the pumpkin seeds and pulp out of the pumpkins. Fill the opening with prepared oatmeal. Serve.
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Amber, you’re doing such great work with California Food Literacy! This is awesome!
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