Have you ever wondered why adults always say "eating fruits and vegetables is very important"? These foods are essential for a healthy diet and help children grow healthy, strong, and full of energy. In fact, including them daily and in the recommended amounts reduces the risk of cardiovascular and intestinal diseases, obesity, and even some types of cancer, and guarantees a good supply of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water, as well as beneficial substances called phytochemicals, which are small shields. This 2024-2025 academic year, the Departments of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food of the Generalitat of Catalonia, with co-financing from the EU, have continued to promote the Fruit and Vegetables in Schools program, a campaign that promotes the consumption of fruits and vegetables among students in grades 2 and 3. This year, the project reached 664 schools and 147,646 students, and included 600 workshops and 400 visits to farms and livestock farms. The goal was to empower children to learn healthy habits and raise awareness about eating these foods.

"Don't play with your food". It is a popular saying that grandparents and parents have traditionally addressed to children to scold them when they refuse to eat. It comes from a time when people went hungry, and it has survived in the collective imagination. In many parts of the world malnutrition persists. In our country there are pockets of poverty which struggle to maintain a proper diet that paradoxically coexist with food waste –it happens in many homes, and also in restaurants and supermarkets–. Two contradictory realities. To this we have to add that the predominant diet in the first world is based on a strong consumption of meat and other types of food whose production produces unsustainable ecological stress. This model has a very relevant effect on the climate crisis, in such a way that global industrial livestock and agriculture, and the massive intercontinental transport of the goods they produce, are largely responsible for the excess of CO₂ we emit into the atmosphere