What’s on Your Fork?

Are you looking for an easy (and educational) way to brighten up a classroom, hallway, office, or cafeteria? Check out our What’s On Your Fork poster, bulletin board banner, and wall decals. They feature beautiful, professional photographs of real, healthy food on a black background – these really stand out!

There are so many fun things you can do with the What’s on Your Fork theme. Here are just a few ideas:

  1. What’s on Your Fork display: Start with our banner or poster, or make your own visual materials with pictures of fruits, vegetables, healthy protein sources, and whole grains. Leave space for people to add pictures of what’s on their own forks.
    • Kids can cut out pictures of healthy food from magazines or supermarket flyers, tape them to plastic forks, and create their own display.
  2. What’s on Your Fork selfies: Encourage people to snap a picture when they’re eating healthy food (if it’s on a fork, that’s fun; if not, that’s fine too!). They can share it on social media (#WhatsOnYourFork), share it with a friend, or keep it private.
  3. What’s on Your Fork with food groups: Let clients decide which food group they want to focus on and have them take pictures of what’s on their fork for one day, three days, or a week. Someone who needs to eat more vegetables would take a picture whenever there’s a veggie on their fork (or spoon, or plate, or bowl!). Do the same for fruits, whole grains, and lean protein.
  4. What’s on Your Fork sugar control: People might say they’re going to limit themselves to 1-2 treats a week, but “forget” when they walk by a candy dish or are offered a piece of birthday cake. Have them snap a picture when they eat a sweet treat (on or off a fork!) and keep it on their phone. Then every time they’re tempted by something sugary, they check their phone to see the last time they had one.

Real Food Grows

Consumers are easily fooled by processed foods disguised as healthy food. It might a big red strawberry on the front of a box of toaster pastries. Or it might be the name of the food itself, as in banana nut oat bran muffins.

They won’t be fooled if they remember that real food grows. Is it something that grew into what it is today? Or has it been processed with ingredients added to create a new kind of food? 

Our Real Food Grows materials get this point across beautifully. Here are some activities to go along with them:

  • Print out a list of some real foods and processed foods in random order. Have participants circle all the real foods. Then discuss why they are real and why the others are not. For a super-quick way to do this activity, use our Real Food Grows bookmarks, which have a list of items on the back.
  • Pass out a variety of real foods and processed food packages. Have each participant say whether their food grows or not. Ask them to tell what ingredients are in their item. For an apple, the ingredient will just be an apple. For an apple fritter, the list will obviously be longer. You can also ask a volunteer to be the scribe who writes the ingredients on a whiteboard or flip chart. They’ll quickly get tired of writing out the long list of ingredients in processed foods and everyone will get the point!
  • Ask questions to get a discussion going about foods disguised to be healthy… Breakfast cereals that contain fruit or nuts? Fruit and grain bars? Banana nut muffins? Oat bran pretzels? Strawberry frozen yogurt bars? Veggie straws or crisps?

It’s so simple, but we need to be reminded every day that Real Food Grows!

Bring the Farm to Your Table

Farmer’s market season is right around the corner. After a winter of frozen veggies and supermarket tomatoes, local produce is going to look and taste so good!

Why not take your nutrition education on the road and set up a nutrition display at the farmer’s market? Our Bring the Farm to Your Table theme has everything you need. You may also want to check out our Farm to School items. And to really get noticed, use our Fruit and Veggie Shaped Balloons.

Here are four activities to try:

  • Q&A: Answer shoppers’ questions about items on sale at the market. Tell them how to select, store, and prepare the produce, as well as the nutrition benefits. Give them a Farm to Your Table Notepad to jot down your advice.
  • Name That Veggie: Display a few items from the market and see who can identify them. Make it tricky, like a variety of leafy greens or less-familiar fruits and vegetables. Our Bring the Farm to Your Table stickers and bookmarks make great prizes.
  • One-Bite for Kids: Have bite-size samples of market items for kids to taste. Give a special prize to those brave little tasters who try all of them. We suggest our fun Fruit and Vegetable Masks!
  • Try It & Buy It: Have samples of market items for shoppers to taste. If they go buy it, they can come back and get a prize (everyone loves our youth and adult Go Farm to Table wristbands).

Ask market vendors for free fruits and vegetables to use for your activities, since you’ll hopefully send some business their way.

Click here for 15% off our farm to table materials – discount good until the end of the week. Or use code LOVEFARM