Students from the Croatian secondary school “Arboretum Opeka” came up with a plan to help their less fortunate schoolmates by using responsible food consumption principles. In a new students’ school kitchen they started to cook meals from locally grown seasonal ingredients for those who cannot afford to buy a lunch at school.
Students at the Croatian secondary school “Arboretum Opeka” are training to be future professional cooks. Additional to their practice in the school kitchen, General Hospital Varaždin, Primary School Vinica, Nursing home Varazdin and in several restaurants, they added a new ingredient to their cooking. Thanks to their involvement in the We Eat Responsibly project the school Eco-team decided to combine their newly acquired practical experience with what they have learned within the project about local and seasonal food and food waste!
From their own initiative, students from the Eco-team wanted to start preparing responsible drinks and sandwiches for their schoolmates that are not wealthy enough to buy their own meal at school. But first to do this they needed some space where they could prepare the meals. Since the school cooking workshop is occupied by students that do their practical training all the time, teachers helped come up with a way how to secure what the students needed. They collected money and equipped a separate room with all the necessary appliances and formed a small student restaurant.
Newly equiped student restaurant.
This was a great way for the Eco-team students to demonstrate to their classmates how to prepare local and seasonal meals and drinks. As ingredients they used vegetables and herbs such as lemon balm, sage or chamomile that students grow in the school garden. Local honey is also available from the school beehive.
But the students also wanted to fight against food waste! To do so, leftovers from previous days were also used for preparing new meals. That inspired students to create a handmade book of recipes from leftovers.
Cookbook of recipes from leftovers.
This inspiring initiative helped to spread information about the benefits of local and seasonal food and about the project itself and at the same time it improved the well-being of less fortunate students.
And that’s not all! Students from the Eco-team also filmed a video about responsible food consumption topics, specifically local and seasonal food.
Having the project at the secondary school “Arboretum Opeka” increased the students’ appreciation of local and seasonal food but also helped them in accepting the differences among students themselves and supporting sympathy for others. They became not only more responsible in their food choices but also more active citizens. And they had fun in the process!
