Supporting Children's Access to Real Healthy Food in Schools

Website link: https://eatreal.org/about/

Donation Link: https://eatreal.org/support-eat-real/

About Eat Real:

Eat Real was founded in 2012 by a group of health advocates to support transparency in food system and ensuring healthier food system for children in schools through their certification program, community building, and awareness programs.

Eat Real is an organization providing certification programs for schools to achieve a healthier and sustainable food system for the kids.

They are focused on access to real food for kids and education on the role of food as medicine and how it can be used to fight the growing epidemic of health challenges from childhood obesity to diabetes and cardiovascular risks and better mental health.

To get Eat Real Certified is to ensure than communities come together to improve the food system for children in schools.

Three criteria for getting certified by Eat Real is to focus on whole food consumption, prepared in a healthy way without the extreme industrial processing that may impact health adversely, and food sourced responsibly directly from local small farms.

Eat Real also supports Universal free schools means for California improving access to fresh and healthier school meal options for kids.

Eat Real has been recognized by the Fast company magazine as 2020 World changing finalist and being a women led organization, they have been awarded funds and grant by IfundWoman and Visa.

They follow evidence-based practices in their programs to train school food service directors and leaders to measure their practices in nutrition when it comes to health and sustainability and provide an effective road map for them to improve on their practices.

There are different levels of certifications by Eat Real based on amount of time it takes to completely adapt to all the standards of real and sustainable nutrition built from scratch.

Because, their work depends on donations and funding from generous supporters, their work offers this certification FREE of cost to public school districts.

One significant change they have brought about is significant reduction of added sugar in school meals. Eat Real had recently joined with YMCA to run a 7Day Sugar Free Challenge to cut off all added sugars from the diet for 7 days to inspire the youth towards a healthy lifestyle and notice the difference in their health.

Their organization is not only involved in creating a healthier tomorrow for the kids but also a healthier planet for all. By incorporating more plant forward meals, sourcing food from locally sustainable organic and regenerative farms, focusing on seasonal produce, and reducing food waste through recycling practices has all been part of their program.

Their program, therefore, not only helps children but the planet and people who serve us the most which is our farmers who feed us. Making children aware of where their food comes from and building awareness of healthful eating habits in the childhood can help the entire ecosystem and everyone who lives in it for the better.

By focusing on locally sourced ingredients, antibiotic free organic & regenerative animal food options, and encouraging minimally processed foods without too much fried or deep-fried foods, significantly reduce added sugars, bringing more focus to real and fresh fruits and vegetables seasonally and locally grown, they have accounted for a holistic outlook on food. This ensures better environment with emphasis on sustainability and animal welfare also.

Their impact growth was over 600% from 2019 to 2021. Their program reaches over 200K students in over 350 schools. They have spread far into many districts now. One of their major wins was helping build School Meals for All coalition of 200+ non-profits that resulted in California become the first state to ensure every child has access to the food they need at school.

Eat Real’s advocacy or policy change and their coalition with non-profits led to this remarkable victory of California becoming the first state to offer Universal free meals offering free school meals to 6.2 million students. Their advocacy has also helped offer a vision for the future of food from farm to school in California by working within the California farm to school working group at California department of food and agriculture’s office of farm to fork health.

Their work has been awarded by the California department of food and agriculture to further replicate and scale their programs to expand the access to real food and in turn help farmers and the environment.

I encourage all my members of Karunamayi Holistic to visit their website and learn more about them and consider donating to this wonderful cause that works for our future tomorrow. The children tomorrow will shape the destiny of this world and the planet. Creating a community of conscious, mindful, and aware children through right eating practices with ongoing education of its relevance will create not only a healthy body, mind for the children but a healthy environment and community for them.

Please visit their donation link to support them: https://eatreal.org/support-eat-real/