Students were able to get a tour of The Frederick and Ophelia Tate Ogier Garden Friday March 3, and participants could pick from the many vegetables and plants to make themselves a healthy salad. The garden is an area at UNF where students can learn about the health benefits of growing their own food.
Yemila Lowry, the UNF dietician, helped set up this event as March is National Nutrition Month.
“We hope to bring people out to the garden, and tell them what it offers by building a healthy salad using the ingredients from the garden,” said Lowry.
Mallory Schott, an employee from the garden and a senior majoring in Nutrition and Dietetics, explained to the audience how the Ogier Garden helps teach students to grow vegetables, hosts workshops and offers students the opportunity to work as a volunteer.
She then gave a tour and showed the participants that the ingredients from the garden can be put into a mason jar that acts as a container for your salad. She gave a clear description of what vegetables grew in the garden such as sugar peas, mulberries and even yellow flowers. The audience was also interested in the idea that you could eat some of the vegetables right after picking them.
After the tour where they learned about the vegetables growing in the garden and picked their own to make a salad, they were taught how to make their own salad dressing, courtesy of Chartwells chef, Brook Adams.
“Dressing from stores often have a lot of sodium and sugar, so [Adams] is going to teach us how to make healthier dressing for ourselves,” said Lowry.
Using ingredients such as vinegar, olive oil, some salt and honey, executive chef Adams amazed everyone by showing them how simple it is to make it. Participants were then able to put some of the freshly-made dressing into their salad.
Students at UNF are able to attend these workshops during the semester. The next workshop, the Mushroom Log Inoculation Workshop, will be held on Wednesday, March 8.
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