Nursery puts health on menu (From Penarth Times)

Nursery puts health on menu

A PENARTH nursery says it is only too pleased to sign up to Jamie Oliver's healthy eating programme.

Sue Evans, owner of the St Aubin Nursery in Penarth which has kicked off its spring menu with a new approach to healthy eating, said: "The sooner children start eating well, the more they'll enjoy good food, and the healthier they'll be."

Head chef of the St Aubin Group, Emma Dorey said: "We are now buying as many organic products as we can, introducing more fish wherever we can, using wholemeal flour in our pastry and home-made cookies, and adding a wider range of fresh fruit and vegetables to the menu.

"I've had a couple of parents already ask me how I'm making one of our new dishes because it's something that their child refuses to eat at home!

"The addition of fish has also proved an interesting exercise - some parents have told me their children will not eat fish except as fish fingers, but we've made fish lasagne and served fish cakes and they've been eaten up. And the babies love the fish too."

Free range eggs are now being used in such dishes as scrambled eggs and quiche, and all the meat is now supplied fresh.

Fruit and vegetables are being delivered directly from Bessemer Road, and new-style afternoon snack include fresh fruits, carrot sticks and cucumber, along with breadsticks and rice cakes, cheese and raisins.

St Aubin Nursery Group has also introduced a Get The Children Moving campaign to fight the fact that children have become too sedentary.