Healthy options for fussy eaters

Children don't like to be told just to eat fruit and vegetables. Besides fun, they want to find out more!

Let them find out the names of fruit and vegetables. Maths questions can be set about the fruit and vegetable prices, per kg or per meal, discount calculation on supermarket promotion.

Outdoor activities can include growing fruit trees and vegetables the organic way, and in biology lab by hydroponic. Combining with other sciences, children can learn about energy in joules, the chemistry of salt and sugar; classify them in terms of carbohydrate, protein, fat, acid, alkali, soluble and non-soluble fibres, various vitamins and minerals.

In English classes, children can have show-n-tell their trips to fruit and vegetable farms; present essays or short stories related to fruit and vegetables. To go further, act out in drama classes the fruit and vegetables characters.

Children should learn about the unhealthy effects of not eating enough fruit and vegetables. They should be shown pictures or documentaries on children suffering from various vitamin deficiencies, obesity; in extreme cases side effects that can lead to cancer.

Alfresco-Style Dining at Footpath Must Go

The Workplace Safety Act 2004 stipulates that all stakeholders - shopkeepers, employees, Council, diners have a duty of care to the safety of the public. To avoid potential accidents, it is only wise to keep footpath to be used as it has been designed for. It only takes one casualty, for example, a pedestrian walking out of the footpath being knocked down by a car in the process of parking at the marked bay, to cost the shopkeepers / ratepayers heaps for insurance compensation.

According to Food Standard 3.2.3, Div 2, Para 3(d), "The design and construction of food premises must to the extent that is practicable – exclude dirt, dust, fumes, smoke and other contaminants." All cafes and restaurants that offer Alfresco dining experience essentially fail the test of the Food Standards Code. Diners breathe in exhaust fumes from motor vehicles, dirt and dust blown in from the street.