“Eating healthy can be a challenge these days because of readily available fast foods and processed products, available in shops and stores”, says Courtney Underwood-Dass.
“Whether it be going down to the market or growing things in your own backyard, I hope that our book teaches kids that eating healthy can be fun and worth the effort.”
Underwood-Dass recently collaborated with food nutritionist Vittoria Pasca in making one of Fiji’s newest colouring, activity, and recipe books on healthy living. The book titled ‘We Love Our Veggies‘ offers a range of fun learning activities on topics such as gardening which parents can do with their kids.
Vittoria says the idea for the book came while working on her ‘Healthy Eating Cookbook‘. She adds the new book was made possible through “team effort”.
“I was still working on my second book, so I really wasn’t thinking about the third one. But it was something that stayed in my head, and it had to be done,” she said.
“The book is so much better than it would have been if I had done it on my own.
“We spent almost a year on the book, which is a long time. But you know, we really took pleasure doing that. We kept revising it, and we’re really happy with the result.
Meanwhile, First Lady Filomena Katonivere who helped officiate the book launch at Alliance Francaise, Suva, says Fiji is lucky to have an abundance of tasty, nutritious and healthy produce available all year round.
She says the book will educate Fijian children from a young age to value and appreciate local healthy foods such as vegetables, fruits and crops as part of their daily diets and further promote the importance of developing healthy eating habits later in life.
The book can be purchased online from the My Fiji Store.
-By Kite Pareti
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