Mission
Good food is a gift of the earth. The mission of The Good Food Project is to introduce children to the exquisite flavors of the earth’s bounty to help them develop a lifelong love of good food and enjoy the benefits of a healthy life.

Introduction
By borrowing a lesson from the junk food industry, which uses “fun” to sell junk food, the Good Food Project conducts food tastings in classrooms and other places where children gather, to enable them to taste real food and develop their palates. Using this method, we teach children the skills to become young “food critics.”

How it works?
• Project staff conduct apple tastings, with four varieties of apples, in the classrooms of Chicago schools
• Children select a favorite and make their own “slinky” apple
• Children wear apple stickers with the name of their favorite apple to generate home conversation
• Families receive letters notifying them of their child’s favorite apple
• Coupons for the purchase of apples go home to families as available
• Children learn age appropriate lesson on apple growth, varieties, flavors

Why Apples?
The Good Food Project is interested in bringing untapped resources in the local food chain into the mix of people addressing the issues of childhood health. Apples, which have a strong association with schools, are the foot in the schoolhouse door. The Michigan State Horticultural Society has provided seed money for the Project.

Who is the project founder?
Susan Taylor has been a food writer and critic for 18 years. She presently writes for the Chicago Tribune. As a volunteer, Susan conducted an apple tasting in her son’s third grade class. When he was a high school senior, a classmate approached her son and told him she remembered the apple tasting as the place she learned to love Fuji apples. This conversation caused Susan to develop the “apple tasting” approach to getting children to develop a life long love of good food.