National Food Day’s 2014 “Big Apple Crunch”
Celebrate National Food Day with an Apple for both Teachers and Students!
By: Malkia “Kia” McLeod
There was a time when parents showed their appreciation for teachers by providing them with housing and food.
By the 1930s, apples had replaced healthy home-cooked meals as a way for families to honor the service of teachers. In 1939, according to Smithsonian.com, Bing Crosby had started promoting the sweet practice with his famous lyrics: An apple for the teacher will always do the trick when you don’t know your lesson in arithmetic.
By the turn of the century, childhood obesity rates had soared with over 20 million children and teens considered overweight or obese. As a result, the urgent need to improve student nutrition came into finer focus with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. It was the first time in over 30 years that the nation had addressed food policies in schools. On July 1, 2014, the USDA took the 2010 Act a step further with the Smart Snacks standards implementation; and the apple as well as other fresh fruit again made its way to the forefront in schools.
On Friday, Oct. 24, 2014, families and educators will have another opportunity to uphold the tradition of the “big shiny red apple” by celebrating National Food Day.
Across the nation, teachers, parents, community leaders, and non-profit organizations will be participating in the National Food Day “Big Apple Crunch” event, an annual attempt to set the world record for the most people simultaneously eating apples. Last year, 16 school districts or more than 18,000 participants in Michigan joined forces to eat apples. In New York, over one million people had also taken a bite; and subsequently set the record for the “most participants in an apple-crunching event”. In New Orleans, over 200 elementary school students had decided to add a little local flavor to the “Big Apple Crunch” with their very own “Big Easy Satsuma Citrus Fruit Peel” Food Day event.
Created by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day is a nationwide celebration of healthy, affordable and sustainably produced food and a grassroots campaign for better food policies.
In addition, it’s a good time to start the conversation about nutrition education in schools; and to build a community of advocates dedicated to ensuring that our children develop healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.
To get started, take a moment to review the following resources. And remember: An apple a day also can keep the doctor away!
2014 National Food Day Resources:
• Share an Apple on National Food Day
• Join the National Food Day conversation on Twitter with #FoodDayChat
• Read Simple Steps to Support Healthy Schools
• Learn how-to Bag the Junk at your School
• Mobilize with USDA’s Smart Snacks Tools for Schools