Once you put car keys in the hands of a teenager your life and their life changes in many ways. Before they drive and hangout with their friends parents pretty much control what they do to a large degree. Given new mobility comes many new choices they have to make without parents to help. There are many things that I could blog about right now drugs, alcohol, sexual activity, smoking but I am choosing just one. Food. As a teacher of high school students for the last 25 years I have seen first hand the eating trends of young Americans. Most of their eating patterns are poor. They choose to sleep late and not to eat breakfast. This is especially true for the females. They just don’t get the fact that metabolism slows down if you don’t fill the tank leading to weight gain because of overeating the rest of the day. If they do eat breakfast 95% of them choose a high fat biscuit with chicken or sausage. Now I am not saying they eat this just a few times a month NO it is everyday! They don’t drink milk instead they choose to drink soft drinks or energy drinks. For that reason I do not allow either one of these in my classroom. They are allowed water, milk or a juice that has 100% Vitamin C. They eat very few fruits and vegetables. It is sad. We discuss this in my classroom quite a bit. Just recently, each student had to keep a food dairy for 3 days and plug it into http://www.mypyramid.gov. Some of them were shocked that their diets were rated so poorly. Out of 60 students there were only six that had fairly decent meals for the three days.
Now my job as a Nutrition and Wellness teacher is to help them make better choices, but on the same hand to teach them to prepare meals at home that are easy, inexpensive, and nutritious. In some ways that is hard for me. I have a budget, too. I don’t have the luxury of preparing entire meals every lab that we have . It’s all very expensive. I break it down into units such as bread, fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, and meats. We do a couple of meals that will have a main dish as well as a side dish. I focus on teaching great cooking skills, planning healthy menus, and money-saving shopping skills. Hopefully when these young teens get out on their own they will be able to make better food choices. I want them to be able to prepare healthy meals at home that will foster good family life.
Our new unit of study for the next couple of weeks is eggs and dairy foods. Today we did a breakfast of french toast, Canadian bacon and strawberries. This is very quick to fix. It could be done in ten minutes especially if you have everything you need put out the night before. Even the eggs, milk and flavorings could be mixed and refrigerated for a big time saver. You can find the recipe here. Now here are the photos of the French Toast cook-off.
You might like these recipes for French toast:
- Simply Recipes French Toast
- Pinch My Salt Basic French Toast
- For The Love of Cooking Cinnamon Raisin French Toast
- Poor Girl Eats Well French Toast
Happy Cooking,
The Teacher Cooks
The Teacher Cooks 
You’re doing a great job of teaching good decision making skills concerning food and nutrition. Oftentimes, as a teacher we do not realize what an influence we have on students for years to come. Keep up the good work as long as you feel inspired to do so!
Looks like the teens did a great job in their cookoff. It all looks so delicious :}. Cooking is such a great way to connect, isn’t it? My daughter is 13, and we really enjoy the times we can make meals together. Lately we’ve been cooking from Gigi Centaro’s book, “Let’s Cook Tonight.” The recipes are yummy and I love how she makes healthy dishes so darn easy. We also downloaded some free menus that are worth checking out. Happy cooking!
I am fighting that battle all of the time. No one is aware of how grave this issue is. Well, some of us certainly are… but, the majority of people, including the parents of these students… and of those MUCH younger have no idea what good nutrition is anymore. It is really, really scary. And honestly, I have made significant and marvellous changes these past three years. I really have. I am getting very tired, now… and nearer the end of my career. I have a lot of energy left – but this kind of cause sucks the life blood right out of me as there is just no end in sight. Our students are so worth it, but I am tired.
🙂
valerie
Great post, Wanda. And thank you for instilling good eating habits in your students…I hope they take it to heart. Everyone is in such a hurry…that usually means fast, unhealthy choices.
Well…this is easy for me to say now that my kids are grown. Luckily, two of my three eat healthy.
Fantastic post! I cringe every time I see one of our lovelies walking to class with a chicken biscuit. Its even worse at lunch – nachos, blue slushie crap…ugh!
Keep doing what you’re doing! You make a tremendous impact on your kids.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi there Wanda it looks like you are putting that lens to good use!! Everything looks delicious!!!
I am loving it. Thanks so much for your help Blakely.
Love this post. It’s eye opening what’s available in the school cafeteria and fast food restaurants these days for breakfast. I admit sometimes I even eat poorly because of convenience, but not often. I am sure you’ve heard of e-mealz.com for inexpensive meal planning. They basically take the sale paper for each of the stores and create dinner menus with those sale foods. It comes with recipes and you can feed a family of four for around $85 per week if you cook every night by their exact menu. We like leftovers so we only cook about three nights per week. I have found many great dinner ideas and recipes. May be another resource you can provide your class. I still remember you teaching me to cook. 🙂
Although I wasnt here for the lab, the demo was fun to watch and I learned how to make a strawberry fan thing! (:
Even though i wasn’t here for this lab, i thought it was really good when you did a demo for us. I learned that the french toast tastes better when you put powdered sugar on top instead of maple syrup.
I am guity of not eating breakfast everyday, and when I do its a honeybun or a poptart.
This lab was interesting. Fanning the strawberry was easier said than done though, but the french toast was easy to make and very good.
I didn’t know that females were mostly the ones who didn’t eat breakfast.
I had never made french toast by myself before and never realized how fast it is to make!
french toast is easy and quick to make.
I learned that making french toast is easier and quicker to make than i thought!
I never knew for sure that if you didn’t eat breakfast it would slow down your metabolism!
what is the difference in canadian bacon and ham
I learned that french toast was really quick and simple to make!
I learned that French toast is a good thing to cook if you’re in a hurry but need to fill up your belly.
I am one of the teens that do not take the time to eat in the morning and now relizing how easy it is to make a little something good and healthy and going to try to get in the habit of starting that.
These were so great i never even had canadian bacon before.Its great and much more easier to clean up after since it doesnt let off so much grease like regular bacon.
I wasnt here for the lab, but the demo was really helpfull in learning how to make french toast. I also learned how to make a strawberry garnish!
I thought it was really cool to see how you made french toast. I have never made it, and it was really good.
The one thing I learned from this lab is not let your toast sit too long of it will burn very fast.
kitchen 5 1st period’s looks great. this was a very fun lab. a short and easy breakfast to make.
I learned that canadian bacon is healthier than regular bacon.
i had no clue that french toast could be so simple and quick and still taste great. I would have never even guessed that it was dipped just in eggs with cinnamon and a few other things.
Wow everyones french toast looks amazing! especially Kitchen four block one! I wish I would have been there! I never knew french toast was so easy too make, its my favorite breakfast food and I will make it often now that I know how!
I learned from this task that if you don’t beat the egg well enough into the dip-mixture-stuff, the egg will actually cook on to the french toast.
I’m proud that my group picture is on top. Also over stiring can casue problems but this was excellent
the toast was reallygood.
I really liked the french toast, i didn’t know that it was so easy to make.
I never knew you used eggs in the recipie for making French Toast.
I learned that french toast is a simple breakfast to make and I also learned how to make a fan with a strawberry.
I learned that ferench toast is a very simple breakfast to make and it taste very good. the recipe is very simple and east to follow!!!
The lab was fun and I learned how to make a strawberry fan.(:
I learned that french toast is one of the easiest breakfast meals to make!
i didnt know French Toast was that easy to make! you can just cook it at night, freeze it and you have breakfast for the next morning!
In this lab I learned how to cut the strawberry to make a pretty garnish. It was really simple to do too.
I’ve always watched my mom make french toast i thought it would’ve been hard to make but it was actually very simple and easy to make!
I didnt know that making french toast was so easy !
didnt know you had 2 use that much butter on the bread
i really enjoyed the french toast we werent as creative with our plates as we usually are but i did enjoy the recipe.
i learned that it is alot faster to make french toast then to make toast.
I really enjoyed the french toast, I learned that it is helpful to put the butter on both sides so that it will brown and cook well.
skipping breakfast slows down your metabolism
i learned that french toast was easy to prepare and how to fan a strawberry
i learned how to fan strawberries.
making french toast was a great expirience!. i lerned to to cook them without them sticking.
The french toast was really good but when we mixed the milk with the eggs I didn’t know you could add milk and it helped with the french toast.
I liked using the strawberry as a decoration for our plates. By making the “fan” the meal looks nicer.
I learned from this lab that french toast is a relatively quick and cheap breakfast to make and that it is better to use fresh bread rather than week old bread or something.
French toast is quick and easy to make.
i learned that if you soak it too long then it will get soggy and wont cook well
I learned how to make the strawberry garnish to go with the French toast and French toast are really easy to make in the morning.
I learned from this lab that it is a fast and easy meal to put together and I found that it was easier to put our french toast in the oven.
I learned how fast it is to make french toast!
I love powdered sugar on my French Toasts! It’s my favorite!
I learned if you leave the bread in the egg to long it will become soggy and fall apart.
I learned that canadian bacon is healthier than regular bacon and quick
I learned that canadian bacon is very good for you!
I learned how to fan a stawberry
I leanred how to fan a strawberry and by doing this it makes the plate looking crisp and cleaner.
if you soak the bread too long in the egg mixture, it will fall apart
its very easy to make just dont leave the bread in the egg mixture too long or it will become soggy
very good
I learned that french toast is very easy to make and that you can’t let the bread soak in the egg mixture. Also that canadian bacon is a lot healthier than regular bacon.
I learned that making french toast is easier and quicker to make than i thought
do not soak bread in egg mixture
I learned how to make French toast.
I learned that you can make homemade french toast from scratch.
i learned you can substitue powdered sugar for syrup.
i learned how to make good french toast and how to fan strawberries
i learned french toast is a fast and easy thing to cook if you are in a hurry and powered sugar is a substitute for sugar
i learned that it was very fast and easy to make.
I learned that when making this, you have to be cautious on how long you cook the french toast. They’re quick to make, therefore easy to burn or under-cook!
It is easy and quick to make and oh so good 🙂