National Nutrition Week 11th - 17th October 2020

Nutrition Australia's Tryfor5 campaign during National Nutrition Week this October aims to encourage Australians to increase their vegetable consumption to the recommended five serves per day. Despite the latest studies and recurring healthy eating messages only 4% of Australian’s are eating enough vegetables each day. The average person eats only half as much as they should, which is the inspiration behind Tryfor5.

There are a range of resources from 2Simple that can support schools during National Nutrition Week.

Purple Mash

Within Purple Mash, if you are a subscribing school, you can find all our Healthy Eating resources here. Why not get children to create a leaflet to persuade people to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, a perfect activity to focus on the Tryfor5 message or prepare a Dinner or Lunch menu for eating together to achieve that balanced diet. Across the school, you could set up a blog using 2Blog where children could share their favourite family recipes as well as a display board where children could submit their favourite healthy meals. There is a range of paint projects that children can use including choosing their favourite healthy filling for a sandwich and drawing a plate of healthy food, we have made these resources free for the week.

Serial Mash

The perfect book to read during National Nutrition Week for Serial Mash subscribers is Our Big Kitchen, inspired by the OBK community kitchen project in the heart of Bondi, Sydney Australia, founded by Rabbi Dr David Slavin in 2005. The Serial Mash book ‘Our Big Kitchen’ is the fictional story of Sienna and her journey through hardship and how the kindness of others and the support of the Our Big Kitchen Charity is imperative to her and others in her situation.

“The experience of Our Big Kitchen was very rewarding. I have learnt many things like how hard some people have it, and how important food is. The experience taught me how fortunate we are, and how necessary food preservation is. It was an experience that makes you incredibly thankful for what we have and proud of helping the community” – Aurelia Age 14.

The OBK project inspires individuals to come together to help people in need, just like Sienna. In addition to providing much-needed food, the project also runs school programs which, in addition to teaching hygiene, food preparation and nutrition, are designed to teach students about giving from a young age, and about those less fortunate. At the heart of it, they are taught about giving. Our Big Kitchen believes in the power of giving -'Through giving, you will receive'. People from all walks of life can connect and work together doing good for those less fortunate. Food and giving meals is the positive end result but the journey of how the meal was made is just as important.

You can read Chapter 1 of the book for free as part of National Nutrition Week here.

Whatever you do to promote National Nutrition Week, please share your work with us on our Facebook and Twitter pages with the #NATryfor5