join the revolution: jamie oliver food foundation

April 25, 2011

Sweetgreen and Sweetlife Festival are proud to support the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation.  The Jamie Oliver Food Foundation was established to fight childhood obesity and promote better dietary health through food education and cooking skills. A portion of the festival’s proceeds will be donated to the celebrity chefsʼ foundation. We also encourage all to sign the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution petition, which seeks to educate people about food and cooking, address the quality of the food served in school lunch halls, and inspire food retailers to provide good quality, fresh, local food to their customers.

Please support this food revolution and sign the petition here.

Jamie Oliver’s TED Talk

sweetgreen in schools: cleveland elementary 2.0

March 29, 2011

This past Friday, sweetgreen in schools went back to visit the bright third graders at Cleveland Elementary. Some of the students told us about how they made salads at home since the last time we saw them. It was their turn to learn about what it means to eat locally and seasonally. We made a salad as a class with spinach, grapes, green apples, cucumbers, red bell peppers, sweet potatoes, and mozzarella cheese with a champaign vinaigrette. Although, they all gobbled up their salads, they missed the kale that we had for our previous visit – we discussed that we didn’t bring it because kale is no longer in season. Using a seasonality calendar, they worked on an activity handout where they drew produce that is in season and grown locally at nearby farms during their birthday months. At the time of their birthday they will now know what produce to look at for.

The third graders at Cleveland Elementary are looking forwarding to coming to the Sweetlife Festival in May. There they will have a picnic, go through various energy zones, and possibly even have a dance competition. We are really excited to have them come out to Merriweather Post Pavilion!

-Carly

sweetgreen in schools: garfield elementary 2.0

March 10, 2011

At Garfield Elementary, we visited the same two fourth grade classes as last time for a new lesson, “Eat with the Seasons!”  We gave each student a seasonal produce calendar to keep, and talked about what it means to eat locally and seasonally.  We taught them about the benefits of eating like a locavore, and they enjoyed hearing that a small carbon footprint causes less pollution and that fresh produce just tastes better!  They also learned about composting; the kids loved the idea that sweetgreen uses forks made of corn.  To sum up the lesson, we made a salad as a class with ingredients from each season: spinach (winter), red bell peppers (summer), sweet potatoes (fall), apples (spring).

It was another successful adventure for sweetgreen in schools this week. On our next visit to Garfield Elementary, we will be accompanied by sweetflow mobile.  The students, their teacher, and even the principal are very excited for this one!

“Overall it went extremely well and the kids were excited to have us back!  The kids couldn’t have been sweeter…not to be corny, but they melted our hearts.  One little girl made me a card that said, “Thank you Carly, you treat me as a friend” and she drew a flower on it –so cute of her to give that to me.  It was nice going back for the second visit to see all the familiar faces and to know that the kids clearly felt more comfortable with us.”

-Carly

sweetgreen in schools: cleveland park

March 2, 2011

This month we visited an adorable group of 35 third graders at Cleveland Elementary as the second school in our sweetgreen in schools program. Each student tried beets, carrots, broccoli, tomato, corn, and krispy kale. They voted on the vegetables they liked best and were surprised with how sweet and tasty vegetables can be. We made two salads with all of these vegetables plus feta cheese with either cucumber basil dressing or balsamic vinaigrette. The students loved choosing toppings for their salads and were eager to try the dressings.

We gave each of the students a score sheet with a number assigned to each of the different salad toppings: the higher the number, the higher the nutritional value. Then the students created their own salads to see how many points they could rack up. Their creativity really shone through as the students created colorful and delicious masterpieces. We truly loved the students and teachers at Cleveland Elementary and are looking forward to our next two visits!

things we dig: wholeshare

February 21, 2011

Farm-to-house comes in a whole new package with Wholeshare,  a new website allowing communities to organize and collectively purchase groceries from local farms.  Bulk purchases from a group of neighbors makes it feasible for farms to deliver one large order at a central location for the group.  Individual buyers get to directly support local farms, access fresh products, and even save money.  Wholeshare has not yet reached DC or Philadelphia, but maybe we can coerce them down from New York? 

photo courtesy of www.wholeshare.com

introducing sweetgreen in schools

February 17, 2011

We are very proud to present our newest community program: sweetgreen in schools. This is an exciting way for us to get involved in our communities and teach kids about the importance of eating healthy!  sweetgreen in schools is a series of interactive, educational nutrition education classes where students will learn key messages about nutrition, health, and “where food comes from” through hands-on activities.  The series will culminate in a final project and students will create personalized salads to share with their families, and compete to see which is the tastiest!  We will also invite the classes on a field trip to one of our store locations to see professional chefs developing and serving salads to customers.

In this month’s lesson, “Eat the Rainbow!” classes prepare salads using a colorful variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and discuss the nutrients and health benefits of each. This past Friday marked the inaugural sweetgreen in schools held at Garfield Elementary in southeast DC.  Adorable 9 and 10 year olds were hesitant at first to try some of the ingredients (tomato, carrot, corn, kale, beets and local feta cheese), but gobbled the salads down once they were all mixed together.  They were even willing to taste raw beets and were surprised by its crunchy sweet flavor.  The kids loved our krispy kale, discovering a new kind of “chip”, and while they craved ranch dressing, they enjoyed balsamic vinaigrette more than they ever thought. 

yoga activist fundraiser at sweetgreen capitol hill

February 2, 2011

Did you know you can support a local yoga studio just by eating a salad?  Come to sweetgreen Capitol Hill this Sunday, February 6 and we will donate 15% of all proceeds from noon until 2pm to Yoga District’s non-profit Yoga Activist Program. Yoga District has 3 locations in DC and aims to make the benefits and healing of yoga accessible to everyone!  Their Yoga Activist program trains volunteer yoga instructors to start programs offering free yoga to trauma survivors, the homeless, and other communities.  You can also contribute by donating your used yoga mats and by participating in our silent auction featuring products from Sky Yoga, Gypsy Style, local DC yoga studios and more!  Plus pick up some tips with Yoga District’s office yoga demos every 20 minutes.  See you on Sunday.