By Barbara Lerman-Golomb, Social Responsibility Consultant, JCC Association
Think back to lunch at summer camp. Remember that first bite of greasy grilled cheese, the bread saturated with oil, the hot cheese oozing out. It was usually accompanied by a bowl of canned tomato soup, each sip sweeter and saltier than the next. So good! But guess what? It wasn’t good for you. Heavily processed, high in sodium, fat and chemicals, the food we ate at camp lacked not only nutritional quality, but “spiritual” quality as well. Few of us were thinking about our relationship to our food back then though. We were busy licking the grease off our fingertips.
How things have changed. This summer, JCC day and resident camps served 85,000 kids, many of whom toss around the word foodie and the names of the hosts of cooking shows. With an abundance of healthy, organic and/or local products and a well-founded concern about wellness, JCC camps are interested in providing healthier, more nutritious meals, and the information and tools our children need to be more mindful eaters. When it comes to today’s camp, “salad days” is no longer just an expression, but a menu option!
JCC Camps at Medford in Medford, New Jersey, the largest day camp in America, posted their menus online. According to Camp Director Aaron Greenberg, “We put all of our lunch items online for parents’ convenience, and nutritional info and ingredients primarily for those with food allergies and limitations.” Among some of the healthier items on the menu were unsweetened cereals, sun butter (a sunflower spread alternative for children with peanut allergies), items with less sodium and additives, as well as gluten-free items, including gluten-free challah for Shabbat! Medford also served fresh fruit and vegetables with all meals, and fresh fruit for snacks.
“This year we bought a commercial pasta [maker],” Greenberg said. “Some items that we used to buy frozen─baked ziti, macaroni and cheese─are now made with fresh sauce and cheese, with fewer preservatives and junk in it. Kids like pasta. Making it ourselves is healthier and saves money─a win-win all around.”
Camp Tawonga in Northern California has been working to make their kitchen healthier and more sustainable for awhile. Kitchen Manager Molly Austin, who studied nutrition and culinary arts focused on cooking for kids, said, “The camp no longer uses boxed mixes for cakes and cookies. We hired a baker to make almost all of our bread products, including sandwich bread, focaccia, pizza crust, cornbread and challah. Everything is made from scratch.” Austin explained that their menu is slowly shifting to fewer meat dishes and more plant-based meals, a way of eating that’s recommended by many food scientists.
Sample menu items included vegetable curry tofu and lettuce wraps. Towanga’s alternative-foods chef (a job category unimaginable even 20 years ago) addresses specific gluten free and allergy issues. “We are continuing to replace refined grains with whole ones,” Austin said. For example, the camp serves only organic brown rice. In their efforts to reduce the refined sugar in campers’ diets, they serve only fresh fruit for dessert at lunchtime. They’ve also started receiving a weekly produce delivery from an organic farm in the area. All of the camp’s kitchen staff worked in the garden about two hours a week and by the middle of the camp season, they began daily harvests, which were incorporated into campers’ meals.
A way to make campers and staff more mindful about the food they’re eating is through camp garden programs. Over a year ago, JCC Association initiated JCC Grows, a healthy food and hunger-relief initiative. JCC Grows encourages community gardens at JCCs (with the majority of the produce being donated to food pantries), fresh food collections, and connections to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers markets. As a partner of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative, JCC Association has committed to a goal of one-third of JCCs and camps involved in food-related projects within three years. With over 40 programs underway, we are on track to meeting our goal.
Several JCC camps had vegetable gardens on site tended by campers and integrated into the camp’s educational and/or nature programs. The hands-on lessons offered campers an opportunity to work in the garden, then cook and eat the foods they helped produce.
At Camp Pinemere in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, bug juice is out and healthier food is in. The extensive garden program headed by Stacey Grossfeld, a master gardener and “garden mom,” helped campers understand where food comes from (not from the fridge!), as well as waste, diversity, and eating local. Campers participated in the planting, watering, and weeding, and kids who helped out in the garden got to harvest the produce.
Grossfeld also taught lessons in bal tashchit, the Jewish mandate not to waste. Using bruised fruit, which would have been discarded, to make a delicious peach cobbler, she asked campers to go beyond how the peaches looked on the outside. Grossfeld and the campers made lemonade with lemons, honey, and strawberries. Then she pulled out a container of commercial lemonade and pointed out the chemical ingredients. Once the kids did a taste test, the homemade lemonade won hands down.
The JCC of Greater Baltimore’s day camp Camp Milldale enjoyed fresh herbs that grew in planters created during last year’s JCC Maccabi Games and ArtsFest. Camp Milldale shares land with Kayam Farm, which created a wonderful partnership that embodied social and ecological responsibility. According to Program Director David Mitnick, “Gardening is one of our most popular camp activities. Every camper plants and harvests, and whenever possible, the camp tries to incorporate the farm food into programming.” For example, a foodie specialist introduced the campers to making their own fruit smoothies, granola, cheese (from milk and lemons) pizza in a solar oven, and whole wheat challah (campers even ground their own wheat). These cooking projects were interwoven with mindful Jewish teachings on brachot (blessings), more consciousness about where food comes from, and the connection between human beings and the land and nature.
The simple daily act of eating can be a profound catalyst for good health and wellness and for spiritual growth. It has the potential of nourishing our children in so many ways.
