Schools use social network and local products for healthy eating

Popularly called “bread from the Amazon”, cassava is used in the region to make pé de moleque, snacks and cakes. It is the recurring substitute for wheat flour. Tapioca, a popular delicacy in the country, is made with cassava starch. With tucupi, cassava root broth, typical dishes of the local culture are made, such as tacacá. At the Professor Benício Leão State School, in Manaus, 431 students from the 5th grade of elementary school were able to discover foods derived from cassava, such as yellow flour and tapioca consumed with açaí, which are part of the school lunch “They could see all this and taste too. There were students who said that their mother made that cake, but he didn’t know it was made with cassava”, explained nutritionist Dheysse de Lima, coordinator of the activity. The project is among the activities with the best performance of the 4th Journey of Food and Nutrition Education of the National School Feeding Program, of the Ministry of Education (MEC). The journey brings together initiatives that contribute to promoting food and nutritional security for students and were presented this week in Brasília during the 2nd International Congress on School Feeding. Cassava, known in some regions of the country as cassava and cassava, is a tuber rich in starches. It has been cultivated by the indigenous populations of the Amazon for more than 9,000 years. In the activity “The cassava culture: student protagonism in interdisciplinary projects”, organized by professor Zilda Andrade Ribeiro, educator Raimunda Nonata Brígida and manager Luciele Oliveira da Silva, students from the Manaus school learned that most of the cassava consumed in the country comes from family farming. The guideline for food and nutrition education advocates the food culture of the region, regional fruits and family farmers. “They [estudantes] they took a classroom and made a visitation environment. They brought other classes and made the presentation. This went on and on, until all the school’s classes were totaled”, said Dheysse de Lima. He said that, based on this experience, the students started to give preference to local products. Social networks In the municipality of Xangri-lá, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the experience was to promote healthy foods through a tool that involves young people: social networks. Students in the 6th and 7th years of elementary school at Escola Municipal de Ensino Fundamental Nayde Emerim Pereira were challenged to advertise healthy foods, such as bananas, avocados, eggs, beans and even water, as interesting as those shown on TV and on the Internet. “We are going to use the media to try to get their attention with various resources, as we see today on television, on the internet, with characters, the whole issue of passing on a feeling of happiness, for foods that are sometimes not so healthy The idea was to show the harmful effects of ultra-processed foods, which students usually eat outside of school, showing how much is invested in those bad foods to make them look good”, explains the municipality’s nutritionist, Juliana Favero. She points out that most of the foods chosen for the project are already part of the school’s menu, but the students did not understand the reasons for integrating the lunch to the detriment of others, such as ultra-processed foods. “This we usually do on the menu. But the students were not aware of why these foods are part of the menu. Those foods are there precisely for that reason, because they need to provide healthy food and provide growth and development for them”, said the nutritionist. The posters made by the young people were publicized by the city hall on the social media of the municipal government. And the experience, which involved 420 students, was included in the book of the day based on the theme “Healthy choices beyond school: what have we learned from the National School Feeding Program (PNAE)?”. According to Juliana Favero, the students enjoyed seeing their idea being publicized and realized the advantages of a balanced and healthy diet. “We noticed this better perception of acceptance of the menu and the involvement of the school”.

Agência Brasil