S9 Ep5: Raising Kids to be Food-Literate Adults Through Hands-On Education with Charlotte Steele
“It's harder for adults to try new things. So when we build those habits with kids, they can disseminate that and spread that joy to their family members— it's really, really powerful.” —Charlotte Steele
Series: Edible SchoolYards
Food education is a powerful tool for supporting kids' holistic development. By providing access to fresh ingredients, teaching cooking skills, and connecting food to culture, we can empower the next generation to make informed, nourishing choices that benefit their health and communities.
The Edible Schoolyard Project is an innovative food education initiative that integrates garden and kitchen classrooms into the school day, empowering students to explore the connections between food, health, and community. By cultivating hands-on learning experiences that foster food literacy, agency, and appreciation for local food systems, Edible Schoolyard aims to equip the next generation with the knowledge and skills to become conscious, confident consumers.
In this episode, Edible Schoolyard New Orleans Director, Charlotte Steele joins Justine to discuss the transformative power of food education programs that go beyond just teaching nutrition facts, the challenges of implementing these kinds of programs, the broader implications of these programs for global food education and the role of cafeterias in promoting healthy food choices.
Connect with Charlotte:
Charlotte Steele is the Director of Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, a pioneering food education program that empowers students to build a positive relationship with food through hands-on learning in gardens and kitchens. With a background in human development and social relations, Charlotte is deeply passionate about using food as a vehicle to support the holistic growth and well-being of young people.
Under Charlotte's leadership, Edible Schoolyard New Orleans has become a model for integrating food-based education into the school day, providing over 4,000 student experiences annually across four public charter schools. Through her work, Charlotte is committed to increasing food access, fostering agency, and cultivating food-literate individuals who will carry these essential life skills into adulthood.
An engaging public speaker, Charlotte has shared her expertise on leveraging food to drive personal and community transformation at events throughout the region. Her vision is to see food education become a standard part of every child's learning experience, empowering the next generation to make informed, nourishing choices that benefit both their own health and the health of the planet.
Connect with Edible Schoolyards New Orleans:
Episode Highlights:
01:08 Access and Agency
07:16 Understanding Food Access
11:57 Food and Community
15:30 Equipping Students with Essential Food Knowledge
20:25 3 Ways To Help Kids Build A Positive Food Relationship
24:56 Tradition and Mindfulness
30:01 An Important Life Skill
Tweets:
#NourishingMindsNourishingLives. Learn how we can support kids' physical, social, and emotional well-being by fostering food access, agency, and cultural connections with @jreichman and Director of @esynola, Charlotte Steele. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season9 #EdibleSchoolYards #FoodLiteracy #FoodEducation #HealthyEating #ChildDevelopment #SchoolGardens #CommunityEngagement #FoodAccess #FoodJustice #LifeskillsThruFood
Inspirational Quotes:
01:52 “It's got to start at the beginning when the kids are young because then these values are ingrained in them.” —Justine Reichman
03:12 “Food can do so many things for our bodies. It can be physically nourishing, emotionally nourishing, and comforting. It can connect us to others, and we really try to put all of those things in the center of our classes and provide students with opportunities to build that agency and personal connection.” —Charlotte Steele
08:29 “The industrial food system, as on a more global level, is what is influencing our food choices, not so much the logistical components.” —Charlotte Steele
08:57 “There's a lot of power in understanding our reality and being smart navigators of it.” —Charlotte Steele
10:07 “When kids can watch fresh food grow and participate in nourishing a seed and then harvest it on the spot and try it raw, that access and agency all of a sudden intersect. They choose to eat that food because they have a personal connection to it and a personal relationship to it. Seeing that food in the store might inspire a different outcome.” —Charlotte Steele
13:19 “It's harder for adults to try new things. So when we build those habits with kids, they can disseminate that and spread that joy to their family members— it's really, really powerful.” —Charlotte Steele
15:44 “Food is at the center of our physical, social, and emotional health as human beings. And when kids grow up as food literate individuals, they… will be more likely to make physically, socially, and emotionally healthy food choices for themselves.” —Charlotte Steele
18:59 “Understanding ourselves as individuals, both on an internal and an emotional level, and also as an agent of our community, is something that food has the power to drive us towards.” —Charlotte Steele
22:19 “The more regard and regular experience that we can have in nature, the bigger physical and emotional appreciation we’ll build for ecosystems, for pollinators, and ensuring that we can protect those ecosystems.” —Charlotte Steele
23:26 “Offering choice whenever possible is important for child development in conjunction with food.” —Charlotte Steele
30:01 “An important life skill is having the introception to be able to feel your stomach and know I'm full.” —Charlotte Steele
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: So good morning, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Charlotte Steele.
Charlotte, welcome. So excited to have you here learn a little bit about you, what you're doing in this world with food and children, and all sorts of things, education. It's so great to see you. I know that we're bringing you on as an expert in this field and somebody that's really passionate about it to share what's inspired you to delve into this in such a meaningful way. So Charlotte, I'd love to just learn a little bit about you, and have our audience learn a little bit about you. So let's start at the beginning. If you had to sum up your mission in life as it relates to what you do with purpose, what would that be?
Charlotte Steele: I've been doing a lot of reflecting on this recently. I see my mission in life to support the development of kids with as many access points as possible, thinking about the development of young people and the way that they become a fully embodied version of themselves. There are so many ways to do that. And in my field, we do that through food, through eating, through cooking, through gardening, and through building a relationship with nature. There are so many opportunities for young people to engage with these mediums and learn things about themselves, and that really is what I see as my mission in life.
Justine Reichman: I love that. It's got to start at the beginning when the kids are young, because these values are ingrained in them. They're all learned. You know, it's both the environment and it's learned, right? So it's all around them, and it's a way for them to incorporate them in their day to day life. Okay, so at this moment, we're here talking about food and kids and the importance of it, and what are your hopes when you bring these kids the access that you will see, on a more global level, local level, with the community.
“Food can do so many things for our bodies. It can be physically nourishing, emotionally nourishing, and comforting. It can connect us to others, and we really try to put all of those things in the center of our classes and provide students with opportunities to build that agency and personal connection.” —Charlotte Steele
Charlotte Steele: So with food, myself and also my organization, Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, we really think about two things. We think about access, and we think about agency. So often, there are barriers for young people to develop a holistic relationship with food, and that can range from any number of things. So our number one goal is to have fresh ingredients with and around kids that they can try in a way that they opt into. So the second aspect of that is agency. We are in control of our food identity and our food development. We see our role as to provide kids with those opportunities to make choices, and to have information about those choices so that they can be the most informed for themselves. Food can do so many things for our bodies. It can be physically nourishing, emotionally nourishing, comforting. It can connect us to others, and we really try to put all of those things in the center of our classes. And again, provide students with those opportunities to build that agency and personal connection.
Justine Reichman: Why was this so important for you? How did you get into this field?
Charlotte Steele: I started in this field as a young person, just finishing school. Personally, as a young person, I did not have a strong relationship with food. We just had some challenges around food, and how it was talked about in my household. Just some harmful language with shame and body image.
Justine Reichman: Can you share a couple of that so that we know what you're talking about? If you don't mind so other people, because when other people, children or parents are listening to this, they can hear some of the things that inspired you to create a different environment. So other children wouldn't have to experience that.
Charlotte Steele: Great. So I think in my personal home, it started with a lack of knowledge around food. It wasn't a very inspired or joyful food environment. It was a lot about nutrients, and nutrients are definitely important. But in our social emotional development as young people, we really need to understand both. How food nourishes our bodies, and how all of the options of food that we're gonna have to eat throughout our lives. Like it or not, good or bad are going to impact us in a variety of ways. And for me and my family, a lot of our focus on purely nourishment resulted in disordered eating for some of my family members, and that was challenging. In my late teens when I went to school, I went to school in a small town in Michigan, Kalamazoo College. I went to my first Farmers Market, and I ate at my first international restaurants. And I really began to understand food as spontaneity, joy and connection, and just fun. I think that really helped me relearn a lot of what I thought I understood food to be, and use food to continue my own personal journey to get to know myself better, and connect to my community in meaningful ways.
Justine Reichman: That's nice. I find food as a great way to connect. I like to cook for family and friends in a way I show I care, I love. And I want to do it with good ingredients. I want to talk about it, and I want to make sure that everybody likes it. And then it's just a way to create a good place to come together to have good conversation over and eat healthy. I know that when I was a kid, my mom was so focused on losing weight, and this and that then. She was always doing it. I can't have this, and no sugar, too much salt and this. And I was like, it's always such a thing, and so I wanted to make it not a thing like this. That can be your personal story, that can be really important for you. But you know what? Just say this is what I can eat. So it takes it in a different direction, exactly. And you know what? It doesn't even matter. I made gluten free pasta for some friends with an amazing sauce I bought at the Farmers Market. Great ingredient. People love pasta. They had no idea it was gluten free, and it was not a conversation. It was all about the Farmers Market and not about the fact. It was about how I had access to these great ingredients, and we got to share and have a great lunch. Her daughter came, she was 10. She loved everything, and it was a way for different generations to come together.
Charlotte Steele: Yes, we make memories through food.
Justine Reichman: We definitely make memories through food. So after you went to college, would you study something in particular around this?
Charlotte Steele: I studied human development and social relations with a focus on food systems. The school that I went to required undergraduate research for as a requirement to matriculate, and I did my thesis on food access and sort of assessing the landscape of grocery options in the city of Kalamazoo. I feel like from a research lens, food access has taken a couple of different terms and is most aptly named. Sometimes, food apartheid that there are areas and neighborhoods where grocery stores are intentionally kept. Ar gas stations are most often the biggest source of food. But really, what I tried to do in that research is interview and do focus groups with residents of that neighborhood and understand, if we took the research and the speculation out of the question, did people really feel like they had access and connection to the food that they needed? And I partnered with a local grocery store in the city and interviewed customers there, and really came to understand that the industrial food system, as on a more global level, is really what is influencing our food choices. Not so much the logistical components of how we exist in our community.
“It's got to start at the beginning when the kids are young because then these values are ingrained in them.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: So what role does that play in your goal to make food a positive experience and connection for children?
Charlotte Steele: We think about our food system, there are certainly things that we can change. But I think there's a lot of power in understanding our reality and being really smart navigators of it. And for kids, at least with Edible Schoolyard and in my personal teaching career, that has meant that all food is okay. The food that we have access to is okay. The food that we're given from our family members is okay. The food that we eat at school, new foods are okay. Foods that we like are okay. Foods that we don't like are okay. Really giving kids the tools to navigate all of those different options, and understand how and when they have a place at the table in their lives.
Justine Reichman: And what role do you know the healthier foods like addressing that for the children so that they are associated in a positive way, and can make that better for your choice for themselves?
Charlotte Steele: Yes. So that's where the access comes in. At Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, we have programming in four open enrollment public charter schools in New Orleans. That includes four big full gardens and two teaching kitchens. So what we see and practice is that when kids can watch fresh food grow and participate in nourishing a seed in a plant, and then maybe harvest it on the spot and try it raw, that access and agency all of a sudden intersect. They choose to eat that food because they have a personal connection to it, and a personal relationship to it. Seeing that food in the store might inspire a different outcome. But enjoying it in community with their classmates is something else. And then the other layer on that is learning how to prepare it. Understanding and trying familiar ways to prepare it, and new ways to prepare it. A lot of our food, we try to eat raw because it's the most efficient and most surprising way to just munch on a carrot that's come right out of the soil. But we also try to do some Alfresco cooking in our outdoor classrooms adding dressings, sauces, mashing guacamole. Different ways that we can use the ingredients in combination with others so that we can increase that flavor and that physical connection to the food.
Justine Reichman: So when these kids come in and they connect with the food, and they're connecting in the garden, or they're connecting in the kitchen, when they go home, they may have very different realities. There some children, some parents are very into gardening and healthy food and systems, and understanding where things come from. Other families feel that, okay, we don't have the budget for that because maybe they haven't had the access to understand how they can make it accessible to themselves and may make other choices. So that conversation, I imagine, for the children and the parents can be challenging at times. I'm sure that the parents can learn from the kids and vice versa. But how do you have the children navigate that?
“When kids can watch fresh food grow and participate in nourishing a seed and then harvest it on the spot and try it raw, that access and agency all of a sudden intersect. They choose to eat that food because they have a personal connection to it and a personal relationship to it. Seeing that food in the store might inspire a different outcome.” —Charlotte Steele
Charlotte Steele: That's a really good question because the other theme that we've addressed here with food is community. Food surrounds us. And a lot of times, it is a metric or a vehicle for our relationship with others. And you're right. Every family has a completely different story and relationship, and narrative with food for a variety of reasons. So the number one way that we navigate that is through events. Family engagement is a really big focus of our programming, and also of first line schools. So Edible Schoolyard is a signature program of first line schools, a charter management organization that runs our four schools in New Orleans. So our schools have frequent events where families are invited to the school. Our garden and kitchen teachers always have some garden or tasting activity at those events. So all of a sudden, immediately, parents are able to engage in those same moments that their kids are having, whether it's familiar or unfamiliar to them. Some of our signature events include family food night and family garden day where kids can bring their families into the space and try new things. It's really fun and sweet to see a seven year old encourage their scrunchy faced parent to try a snap pee right off the bush. It's harder for adults to try new things. So when we build those habits with kids, and then they can disseminate that and spread that joy to their family members, it's really, really powerful.
Justine Reichman: Okay. Charlotte, are there any statistics that you could share as it relates to your program that you're involved in? What does it mean to have children have access to food? And how does it impact their later choices?
Charlotte Steele: It's hard for us to say for sure. Because of course, kids are oftentimes not in charge of their entire environment. In terms of the impact that we have in our classes, I can say with confidence that we have a 100% positive impact on access and agency. 67% of our kitchen classes last year included a fresh meal, and 60% of our garden classes included a garden grown snack. So on a regular basis, kids are engaging with these concepts and these behaviors at school in terms of our special events. We had close to 2,000 families come out last year across all four schools at a variety of different events. But this is really the way that we know that we can have that wraparound impact on both kids and parents. And some other helpful statistics include that in total kids come to our gardens and kitchens over 4,000 times across all four schools over the school year. Last year, we hosted 18 events with, again, that's with students and families. And I'm sorry, I'm going to go back and say that we had 1,000 attendees at those events. Not close to 2,000.
Justine Reichman: If we think outside the Edible Schoolyard, because this is a mission you're driven to support and lead outside of just Edible Schoolyard, I imagine. So if you look around in other states and other schools in other areas, what can you tell us about providing education and connection to food, and the impact that we've seen on a more global level? What could it mean for us in the future?
Charlotte Steele: It's hard to compare to other school districts because I just haven't spent as much time there. But I will say that the reason why the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans and other Edible Schoolyard programs across the country are so impactful is that food is at the center of our physical, social and emotional health as human beings. And when kids grow up as food literate individuals, and they can have access to all five food groups regularly in their cafeteria, they can try fresh, raw and cooked ingredients in their garden and kitchen classes and have those regular touch points to build a positive identity with food. As adults, we believe that they will be more likely to make physically, social and emotionally healthy food choices for themselves.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Are you familiar with the Green Bronx Machine out of the Bronx, New York? So the green Bronx Machine is run by Steve Ritz. He's the one that spearheaded it. Definitely look it up. And they created a program that can be used in different schools to incorporate growing plants. And students are doing better, just in general. And so I feel like there could be some synergies there with you guys there and the Bronx. They create these programs throughout. It's global. He's been to Dubai. He's been everywhere. And basically, it's a program that the school can follow along with. Whereas what I'm understanding from you is you have the physical school. So his is a program that you develop in a school, and the kids are participating in yours as a destination in these schools.
Charlotte Steele: Ours is a physical part of the school property. Students go to lunch, they go to recess, and then we are a fully embedded part of the enrichment or a special cycle in the school schedule. So kids might go to PE, they might go to music and then come to garden class as one of those regularly scheduled classes that they have as a part of their week. A schedule and rhythm that kids come from depends on each school. But our gardens and kitchens are part of the school property,
Justine Reichman: I think that they do something similar. So Charlotte, you've run a great program, and your interests are really very defined and connected to food and children. We want to see this grow globally. What is your hope for programs like this one as we expand and grow, and people become more familiar with this, so that we can maybe see children as they age out of the schools making better for you choices.
Charlotte Steele: I think my hope is twofold. First, for happy, healthy adults. On my personal journey, I have been blessed to be equipped with a number of skills that I've found through food, and also through getting to know myself better through therapy. I think that really understanding ourselves as individuals, both on an internal and an emotional level, and also as an agent of our community is something that food has the power to drive us towards. And again, when we think about food, we think about those two components of health, physical health, and also social and emotional health. That connectedness. Food is really powerful in that way. The second component is connected communities. Farmers and food purveyors are absolutely essential to our past, present and future. When I think about this kind of work and the impact that it can have, a lot of it comes down to relationships and understanding, and having appreciation for the people who are working hard to grow, harvest, package and distribute our food every single day. We live in a hyper industrialized world, and it's really easy to lose touch with those things. And doing things like shopping at the Farmers Market, like you mentioned earlier, can really just reconnect us and help make our communities happier and more resilient.
Justine Reichman: So for those children that don't have access to a program like this in their school, what are some ways that we could maybe offer them to start to make some connections through food? Give us three. How about 3?
Charlotte Steele: Ways that they could connect to food even without a program like Edible Schoolyard?
Justine Reichman: Without a program that maybe parents can drive or maybe will inspire somebody else to create a different program for those folks that don't have access to it in a school just by sharing it.
Charlotte Steele: Food has inherent connections to academic content. And I think when we think about food and how it can connect to ways that we practice literacy with kids, there are so many opportunities. One of my co workers always jokes that when she wants to get her daughter to practice reading, they pull out a recipe and make a dish together because her daughter can drive that activity. It's something fun that they can do together, and she's inherently practicing reading. It's a built-in part of how a lot of people prepare food. The second would be through mindfulness and connection when we eat and enjoy food that we do it in community, and we do it in a way that enables us to have authentic conversations with one another. That we can slow down and really focus on how the food is affecting all five of our senses too slowly. One of my favorite team builders that I've done recently at work involved having to write a narrative description about a food that we tasted and read it to someone else to see if they could guess that food. When we think about a food and its texture, its flavor, its smell, even how it sounds while we're eating it, we just have that more, much more of a richer relationship. And the last way, I think, would be through nature and the natural world. Food grows all around us, in cities, in forests. And the more regard and regular experience that we can have in nature, the bigger appreciation will build physical and emotional appreciation will build for ecosystems. For pollinators like bees and butterflies, and ensuring that we can protect those ecosystems so they can c plants can continue to bear fruit, and farmers can continue to have the climate conditions that they need to grow.
Justine Reichman: I appreciate that. Because I think one of the things that we really hope to do here on the podcast is to provide a platform for people to share different ways to inspire others, so that they can be inspired, be creative and create access to better food choices. And absolutely, there's so many positives that come out of it. So I think that that's really useful. So we have three ways that we can introduce kids to food to create a positive relationship. And so if we're talking to other people that are in your industry, policy makers, people in agriculture, people in food that really want to connect food with child development, what would you love to see on a global level happen?
Charlotte Steele: On a global level? I would love to see cafeterias leveraged for not only access to fresh local food options, but also as vehicles for building those social and emotional skills of agency. Offering choice whenever possible is really important for child development in conjunction with food making food fun, making it playful. When we offer kids food environments that bring them joy, they're inherently more relaxed, and their brains are more primed to try something new or have a new experience. And I think cafeterias are the number one way to do that. Cafeterias have an incredible amount of purchasing power as well. When we think about a cafeteria budget and locally grown state based fruits and vegetables, there are so many connections to be made there to perpetuate and support all of these positive connections and positive experiences that we've been talking about.
Justine Reichman: Is there maybe one or two stories that you could share of children that you've worked with on a personal level that you've seen change? So it's not just, yes, we experience this, and all of our students do this. But you could share the actual impact it's had?
Charlotte Steele: Yeah. I have the honor of working in New Orleans. I'm not from New Orleans. New Orleans is a very multicultural and tradition oriented food culture, and it's just really an honor to work with kids who are surrounded by legacies of food tradition all the time. And one of my favorite units that I ever taught. The school that I taught at was in the Treme, and we did a unit about Leah Chase, who is our local female celebrity chef who inspired the Disney Princess Tiana. There is an immediate access point for all kids there. But Leah Chase was also a really important activist during the Civil Rights Movement. She integrated her restaurant before it was legal to do so, and provided a safe haven for other activists like Martin Luther King and John Lewis to strategize, decompress, and just share food together, physically and emotionally nourishing themselves in their important fight.
And working in the Treme, a lot of kids who attended my school walked to school, and walked right underneath the Dooky Chase sign, which is the name of Leah Chase's restaurant. Walked right past it. And for a lot of kids, that awareness just isn't there. But being able to explicitly teach and use visual aids to bring them into that history that so many tourists were coming to explicitly experience was really inspiring a lot of pride. Kids felt connected to their physical neighborhood. They felt connected to Disney and Princess Tiana, and her story of opening her own restaurant. And most importantly, they got to experience some of Leah Chase's signature recipes, including her famous sweet potato pie and gumbo. And every year, at the end of the year, we'd ask every single kid, what was your favorite thing that we did this year? And almost every single one would say, learning about Leah Chase.
Justine Reichman: That's amazing. So it's connecting food, education, community and culture. And to further dig a little deeper into the question of culture, oftentimes, many cultures have recipes that are not inherently healthy. I speak from the Jewish culture where we put sour cream and cream cheese, and sticks of butter, and also sugar and all sorts of things. So oftentimes, you talk about culture and you talk about how ingrained it is, how do you support these children or these families to be able to continue to make their recipes, their foods that they're so connected to by culture with a little bit of a more mindful and healthier twist so that they can continue the tradition, but equally be mindful of what's going into it.
Charlotte Steele: That's a really good question. I think rather than add a twist or be mindful of what's going into it, because those recipes hold so much intergenerational pride, it's really just offering diversity and understanding of the ingredients and where they come from, and other foods to prepare in partnership with those foods.
Justine Reichman: So it's not about either, it's about both.
Charlotte Steele: When I was in school, I felt like learning about food education. It was a lot about replacement. It was about whether we should or shouldn't, healthy, unhealthy. We can eat this, we can't eat this. But if we think about human beings and human nature, that's not necessarily real or realistic for everyone. Especially when your food identity, like we've been talking about, has been passed down for multiple generations. And we're not asking people to stop doing or preparing those things. But again, we just want to provide the access and the agency to more options, to a fuller understanding of exactly where those ingredients come from. One of Leah Chase's most famous recipes actually is gumbo z'herbes, which is a vegetarian gumbo that includes, I don't remember if it's seven or nine different greens. So when we made our gumbo with the kids, we would do meat. We would usually do sausage or chicken, because that's familiar, that's safe for them. And then we would add the greens from the garden because they grew them, and they would eat it all together. And that, I think, is the name of the game. Finding those intersections of comfort and familiarity, and also risk and newness.
Justine Reichman: I think that's a great way to integrate it, make it accessible and familiar. And I would add the other just to go back to what you said, which is not changing, but making other things accessible around. It's also about moderation. The truth is if we can eat things in moderation, it's a better way to be anyway. I don't think we need to be gluttons about it. So part of it is just understanding that. I was taught that when I'm full, I don't eat anymore. I always take what I think I can eat on my plate. I leave the rest in the center because I can go back six times. But if I take it all and then I don't eat it, well, that's way--
Charlotte Steele: Yes. And that's such an important life skill is having the introspection to be able to feel your stomach fill up and know I'm full. I'm done.
Justine Reichman: I really appreciate you coming on, sharing your inspiration, your hopes, the successes that you've had. I hope that it will inspire those in the industry and in the space to support their children and families to make more informed choices, and maybe create other programs similar to yours in places they don't exist.
Charlotte Steele: Thank you so much. Justine, I really enjoyed our conversation.
