Healthy Kids Start in the Garden: Growing Food, Growing Futures
At Project Wild Rooted, we believe that raising healthy, resilient kids starts with helping them build a real relationship with the earth—and that includes their food. Yet today’s reality is startling: studies show that 9 out of 10 children don’t eat enough vegetables. Most children’s diets are made up of processed foods, with less than 40% of their total intake coming from whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables.
It’s not because kids are inherently picky, it’s often because they haven’t had the right experiences with food yet.
Research shows that children are five times more likely to eat vegetables if they’ve grown them themselves. Growing a garden doesn’t just provide food, it gives kids ownership, confidence, and curiosity. Even then, it can take 10–15 exposures to a new food before a child actually begins to like it. That’s not a failure, it’s just part of the learning process.
So what can we do to help kids grow up knowing and loving the foods that nourish them?
Here are a few ways to help children try new vegetables:
Grow a garden together It doesn’t need to be big, even a container of greens or a few pots of herbs can get kids excited.
Take your kids to the farmers market- Let them choose a new veggie each week to explore.
Make veggies visible and available- A simple charcuterie board with cut-up veggies and dips on the kitchen table makes healthy snacks the easy option.
Let kids help in the kitchen- When kids help prepare meals, they’re more likely to try them.
Bringing It to Life at Project Wild Rooted
This year, we’re thrilled to introduce a hands-on gardening component for our elementary campers. Inspired by last year’s excitement around our garden, we’re giving kids even more opportunities for this experience where kids are learning how to plant, tend, and harvest their own vegetables. Each camp session will include a mini garden lesson in addition to the week’s camp theme, allowing campers to contribute to our community garden and gain a deeper understanding of where our food comes from. With help from our school-year students, who started seeds and prepared raised beds, this will truly be a full-circle experience in teamwork and growth.
It’s not only about eating more veggies, it’s about empowering our youth with the ability to grow their own food, to be self-sustainable, to have the confidence to try, and to build the basic skills to succeed.
In our Rooted Academy program, we go even deeper:
We milled our own corn to make fresh corn muffins.
We cut root vegetables to make a hearty vegetable stew.
We made scrambled eggs from chickens raised on the homesteads of our own students.
We tapped maple trees on our land, boiled down the sap, and tasted fresh maple syrup we made ourselves.
We’re helping kids understand that eating well isn’t about what’s in a package, it’s about eating what the earth has given us. It’s about connection. We are not separate from nature; we are part of it.
By teaching kids how to grow and prepare food with their own hands, we’re not just raising healthy eaters, we’re raising kids who care about the world around them. Kids who know that the earth gives to us, and that it’s our responsibility to care for it in return.
Let’s raise kids who are rooted! Rooted in their food, in their communities, in the natural world.
Get your kids outside. Get your hands in the dirt. Grow something together. Watch them thrive.
