Clean Plate specialises in providing learning settings, children and families with healthy meal ideas, nutritious menu plans, toddler meal ideas and healthy snack recipes.
Healthy Eating
Our Clean Plate Menu Planning System for Early Learning Settings is a handy tool to help cooks and managers provide delicious and nutritious meals to children in their care, while staying organised and on budget. Meanwhile, our BLOG shares recipes and cooking ideas for children, parents and caregivers.
We are also big fans of sustainability, especially reducing food and packaging waste, growing your own produce and zero waste activities.
Healthy Planet
Guided by our motto ‘Healthy Eating, Healthy Planet’, we deliver our Clean Plate Less Waste Lunchbox Workshop and Clean Plate Less Waste Worm Farm Session to parents, carers and children at early childhood centres, primary schools and community settings across Auckland . From time to time, we also work in collaboration with other organisations to deliver our exciting healthy eating & sustainability initiative Clean Plate Less Waste Project for ECE.
Check our BLOG for zero waste and gardening activities and ideas.
Childhood obesity is rising
We are what we eat, and this is no less true for children. It’s in the early years parents and caregivers have the best opportunity to lay a good nutritional foundation and establish good eating habits in under-fives.
Sadly, as a society we are letting our children down. The NZ Health Survey 2016/17 found that one in eight Kiwi children is obese. Worse, the child obesity rate increased from 8% in 2006 to 12% in 2017.
Together, we can fix this
But it doesn’t have to be this way. One of the most effective places to establish good eating habits is in the controlled environment of early childhood education centres. Unfortunately, a study conducted by Growing Up New Zealand found that while 82% of childcare services had a written nutrition policy, many were not comprehensive or were difficult to action. The study also found common practices may encourage children to develop preferences for unhealthy food.