In 2020, the digital toolkit ‘Phenomenom’ has continued to expand its reach and relevance in Australian classrooms. The program includes a suite of springboard webisodes, audio and PDF lesson plans, and this year it has introduced a new special resources pack designed specifically to talk to children about food and mood – the benefits of eating fresh produce for improving wellbeing and general outlook on life. Vegetables Australia reports.

In response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fruit, vegetable and nut consumption and the corresponding effect on mental health and well-being, Hort Innovation launched the Good Mood Food initiative in May 2020.

This direct-to-consumer marketing initiative played out across the country and used a range of channels, including TV, newspapers, radio, online, social media and retail partnerships.

The Good Mood Food campaign was not only marketed through media, but also incorporated existing platforms such as Phenomenom. Led by ABC Culinary Correspondent and cookbook author Alice Zaslavsky, the Phenomenom project was established in 2016 and branched out over the past four years through R&D funding from Hort Innovation commodities – vegetables, mushrooms and onions.

This time – funded through Hort Innovation’s risk management reserves – the project developed a special resources pack to educate children about the correlation between food and mood.

“It’s been a really tough year for everybody, but kids in particular don’t have the language and experience at their disposal that we build up within ourselves around resilience and coping mechanisms,” Alice explains.

“Through these resources, we’re prompting them to think about getting active; moving their bodies, doing some mindfulness and meditation; being outside in nature; and eating plenty of nuts, fresh fruit and vegetables.

“This was something that had been identified as an area of interest from teachers and parents in our research, and it was a perfect opportunity to get it out into the world at a time when children and families need it the most.”

Phenomenom Project Lead Alice Zaslavsky.

Encouraging movement

The new resources pack contains three new Nomcast podcast episodes, which now contain visual prompts.

“What we identified in our last data set is that it’s beneficial to have visual prompts as well as audio,” Alice says.

“We’ve created animatics that go along with the podcast for students who may have difficulties with auditory processing or simply prefer visual learning. It’s a nice little prompt that’s fun and watchable.”

There is also a brand-new webisode, lesson plans, student prompt cards as well as the digital Good Mood Moves Wheel.

“One of the things that we identified is that children don’t recognise the connection between movement and boosting your feel-good hormones – your endorphins, and also boosting your focus in class,” Alice says.

“We’ve created this Good Mood Moves Wheel, which gamifies the notion of doing some little stretches, getting up every now and then, prompting teachers to integrate this on a daily basis.”

“All of the movements correlate to fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts that kids can also become familiar with and as we know, familiarity breeds likelihood to try and enjoy. So, it’s another opportunity for us to create an exposure point for fresh produce to children.”

A bonus is that these are all free resources, and parents are encouraged to get involved.

“If there’s one thing that we’ve learnt this year, it’s that remote learning can happen anytime, and families can take control of their learning,” Alice says.

Vegetable growers Jake and Hope Shadbolt featured in the latest Hort Heroes video.

Producing Hort Heroes

In November 2019, Alice and the Phenomenom team travelled to Swan Hill in northern Victoria to visit Jake Shadbolt and his sister Hope from Scotties Point Farms. The pair featured in the second instalment of the Hort Heroes video series, which focuses on opening the world of horticulture up to older secondary students to show them the opportunities that exist within the sector. In this video, Jake and Hope educated the crew about the intricacies of growing onions.

“My aim with the Hort Heroes careers series is to create stories that older students can really resonate with, and to show them the youth of the industry on-screen so that they can imagine themselves in a career in horticulture,” Alice says.

The Shadbolt feature followed Jessica Toth from Costa Mushrooms, who spoke about her passion for growing.

According to Alice, the videos are engaging with schools and industry. They are also gaining traction online through social media channels, and the team hopes to film more of these videos.

Looking ahead

Alice’s vision is for Phenomenom to be funded on a continuous basis.

“I think what makes Phenomenom great is that it is evergreen content for schools. The resource tool kit that we’re building will live on and have relevance for at least the next decade. It’s a legacy piece for the industry,” Alice says.

“What we need to do is to continue to amplify the project and to do that, we need to continue to create content and resources, and to incorporate it into a broader program for schools. This in turn drives more audience and it’s a self-perpetuating cycle of relevance and usefulness.”

In a boost for the project, ABC Education will begin showing Phenomenom videos from early 2021.

“ABC Education is the most trusted and most used education platform in the country,” Alice said.

“We’re already on ClickView, which is also very trusted in the video space, but to be on ABC Education is going to be a boost to the visibility for even more teachers and students to access the resource.”

Find out more

For more information and to access Phenomenom’s interactive resources, please click here.

The Phenomenom program has been funded by Hort Innovation using the mushroom, onion and vegetable research and development levies and contribution from the Australian Government under projects VG16018, MT18015 and ST19041.

Alice Zaslavsky’s new book, In Praise of Veg.

New recipe book making vegetables the hero of your plate

Alice Zaslavsky is, in her words, “a veg girl from way back.”

Alice’s passion for all things vegetables has led to the publishing of the book In Praise of Veg: A Modern Kitchen Companion, which is out now.

“I like to call it a book for the ‘vegetarian and the veg curious’, so it’s not fully vegetarian or vegan. It has still got bits of flavour additions such as smoked fish, bacon or mince, but vegetables are very much the hero,” Alice explains.

“It’s targeted at someone who’s starting out in the kitchen all the way through to the avid home cook, and it’s particularly geared towards families. There are a lot of parents, who are wondering ‘how can I get my kids to eat more veg?’, and this is giving them the delicious tools to do that.”

The book is close to 500 pages with over 150 recipes, and it includes a ‘Vegetable Matrix’ that demonstrates exactly how long to cook vegetables, and how to get the best out of them quickly.

“This book is about meeting people where they are and nudging them towards adding more and more vegetables to every meal,” Alice says.

“I want people to see vegetables differently. For too long, consumers have thought that vegetables were something that they had to eat; I want people to think that vegetables are something that they want to eat, because they now have the tools to make them taste great.”

For more details or to purchase In Praise of Veg: A Modern Kitchen Companion, please click here.

The ‘Vegetable Matrix’ that features in Alice Zaslavsky’s book, In Praise of Veg.

This article first appeared in Vegetables Australia – Summer 2020/21. To read the full publication, please click here.