Caring Health with Organic Food

Menu of the day:'' Fruit, vegetable, oil, eggs, sausages, meat: honey and nuts''. Appetizing, and above all very healthy, because all these products are organic and the basis of Organic Food Program for Social Consumption in the Andalusian region, sponsored by the Junta de Andalucía.

We have enjoyed the privileges that these menus are almost for Andalusian students of a hundred schools and child care of the autonomous region, in addition to patients of Hospital Virgen de las Nieves (Granada) and the High Resolution Sierra Segura (Jaen).

Also residences for adults and schoolchildren, and 48 socioeducational care centers had the opportunity to enjoy these menus.

Three years

Since the launch of this social consumption in September 2005, was closed last June the third year of this initiative, and 10,800 guests are those who have seen, felt, smelled and tasted organic products produced in Andalusia and, most importantly, lay an important foundation for this type of power transfer to the daily diet and that of those around them.

This objective was reinforced by the distribution of information about these foods free of chemicals, through information events, workshops, visits to organic farms and tasting activities.

Although these activities have led to a number of the population (the most vulnerable: children, elderly and sick), the protagonists are children, who have been trying to imply that the value of a healthy diet and organic products based on quality. Thus, young people learn the qualities of an organic diet and more easily internalized.

To reinforce this point, it made recommendations to the heads of the school community on rations for children, considering the nutritional requirements and a wide variety of food, introducing them typical from Andalusia suitable for children. The program believes that food should not be just a service that allows the school to reconcile work and family life of many Andalusians, but should form part of children's education.

Therefore kitchens and dining areas should be converted, according to the project in the laboratories where it is taught and practiced food education, supplemented this with the work of teachers in classrooms and other school activities.

Information provided to children before the meal, a proper environment in the dining room and given sufficient time to eat food slowly, it is essential for proper food education.

Dining room and kitchen were well in school classrooms and laboratories where it is taught to young children good dietary habits and health, since both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Environment Agency insist that the child population is more susceptible to the impacts of pesticide residues in food as a result of their immature state of physiological development.

Interdepartmental Collaboration

Program Organic food for consumption of Andalusia is an initiative of the Department of Organic Agriculture of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of Andalusia, which was launched in September 2005 thanks to a collaboration agreement that was signed between the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Education and Environment of the Junta de Andalucía, later joining the Department of Equality and Social Welfare.

In the first phase, it worked mainly with primary schools, so the program also was identified as "Organic food for schools in Andalusia."

The program is conceived as a way to boost local consumption of organic food in Andalusia, as currently a lot of these foods produced in Andalusia are exported, and thus ensure sustainable development of organic products in our Community.

Making ecological quality reach children, the sick and the elderly is one of the main goals of this program.

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