Geneva students learn their fruit-and-vegetable ABCs

Let's give a big, fat raspberry to the popular myth that kids don't like fruits and vegetables.

Harrison Street Elementary students who buy their lunch at school bellied up to a fun task this week, trying a variety of fruits and vegetables at the "A to Z Garden Bar."

School workers filled the usual salad bar each day with different items corresponding to a letter in the alphabet. There were posters explaining why each was good, or whether it had a nickname. Children also received activity sheets and informational fliers to take home.

The program was suggested by Sodexho, the company that runs Geneva public schools' lunch program.

The goal is to introduce kids to vegetables and fruits beyond the typical carrots, green beans and apples they tolerate at home, so that they will eat more produce.

A 2000 study comparing children's dietary intake with federally recommended standards found 64 percent did not eat the recommended servings for vegetables.

The news gets worse as they get older: 80 percent of adolescents did not get the recommended five or more servings of produce daily.

Tuesday at Harrison, kids tried lemons ("the golden apple"), lettuce, Mandarin and navel oranges, black olives and green peas for the letters L, M, N, O and P. Monday, the offerings included blueberries, honeydew and edible mushrooms (for the letter E).

Peas, olives and oranges were especially popular.

"Ooh, this is heaven," exclaimed first-grader Ben Pavlik when he spied the sliced olives. "I can't believe they have this." He dumped two large spoonfuls on his platter.

But he criticized classmate Christopher Morales' choice.

"You like lemon? You're crazy," he said.

That violates one of head cook Teresa Ramirez's rules.

"Don't 'yuck' someone else's 'yum,' " she tells the kids. Ramirez, personally, doesn't like mushrooms.

Ramirez said the school has a salad bar every day, and she tries to change it up.

"The kids like the variety. I also tell them, 'Go up to the salad bar. We've got some new things,' " she said.

Christopher happily sucked on his lemon slices, as did second-grader Cory Marcinkus, who said he and his buddies "picked the lemons because they are sour, and we've never tried anything so sour." Another second-grader picked lemons because they are his favorite color.

They gave the lemons a thumbs-up.