Check out our picture of healthy food over there. How many of these fruits and veggies would your kids actually eat?! 

Did you know that the answer for whether your kid will eat a healthy food might depend on how involved he was in the process of growing, harvesting, and cooking it to eat!

No one knows this better than Gracie Cavnar! After multiple careers in everything from architecture to marketing to hospitality, Gracie was compelled to help children by creating the largest educational nutrition program in the United States: Recipe For Success.

The childhood obesity epidemic drives Gracie’s passion. She is committed to aiding children with learn about long-term health through proper nutrition with a variety of programs. In fact, Gracie’s expertise in nutritional information was so well regarded, that she was asked to serve as an adviser for the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Task Force.

With her Recipe For Success Foundation as inspiration, Gracie is combining her passion for eating healthy with her love of writing. One example of her success is her award-winning book Eat It! Food Adventures with Marco Polo: Volume 1: Leaving Home. lEat It! is much more than the adventure story of a young boy named Tavi. It is a travel journal and cookbook, too.

Focus on Healthy Food

MCA: Hi Gracie! Would you mind telling us more about your reasons for creating Eat It! Food Adventures with Marco Polo? 
Gracie: I wanted to give parents a great tool to engage children in the fun of healthy food. I really wanted to do my part to turn back the unprecedented surge of childhood obesity. In the mid-1990s I created a foundation that reaches out to children and reconnects them with real, unprocessed food. Eat It! is an extension of that effort.

I know that children are willing to eat just about anything they grow or cook. Our Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ programs at the Recipe for Success Foundation that teach them how to establish lifelong healthy habits.

To my delight, we discovered that children also like the stories and rituals that surround food, which presented us with another teaching moment: Understanding our neighbors and enriching our lives by planning, preparing, and enjoying our meals together. Now any child can connect to the magical adventure of food through this series.

MCA: What a great way to bring together culture and health in a book! There is so much in Eat It! from history and geography to cooking and real historical characters, too. What was your biggest challenge with Eat It!?
Gracie: Time! A book takes focus. Time is something I have a short supply of since I am the CEO of a fast-growing foundation, as well as having to manage my far-flung family and multiple households. I finally had to retreat and withdraw from nearly all daily obligations for four months over two summers to get the book written and the recipes designed and tested!

MCA: I think many authors can agree with you that there never seems to be enough time to bunker down on creative projects! Does feedback help with that?
Gracie: The book has received rave reviews from parents and kids alike. I regularly hear comments like “This is my children’s favorite cookbook!” and “Our whole family loves these dishes.”

MCA: Clearly your readers are using the book in the different ways you intended. Now, what do you consider your most important contribution with bringing Eat It! to families?
Gracie: Parents need every tool we can give them to square off against the huge marketing machine that promotes junk and processed food 24/7 everywhere we turn. It is so important to get children on the right track early while their habits are just being formed, and this book is another way to engage young children in the magic and adventure of healthy food preparation and enjoyment.

MCA: If developing this product has changed your life in any way, please share with our readers. 
Gracie: I was a professional journalist before I created the Recipe for Success Foundation to take on the epidemic of childhood obesity. I love the work I do with kids and the fact that I have changed so many thousands of lives with Recipe for Success, but I missed the creative outlet of writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire process of producing this first book, and am now deeply involved in writing Volume II in the series. But the best part is that with the books, I can now reach many more thousands of children and hopefully have a positive impact on the way they live their lives.

MCA: That sounds so wonderful. Looking ahead, what’s coming next for you?
Gracie:  Mostly the second book. There is more to come in the Eat It! Food Adventures With Marco Polo series for 7-11 year olds, and I am also writing a young children’s picture book, I Hate Brussels Sprouts! which will also have some recipe for parents included. We are also working on an app for the Eat It! Food Adventures series as well as a TV series.

MCA: That’s very exciting! Best of luck to you, Gracie!

Mom’s Choice Awards® Honors

Eat It! Food Adventures with Marco Polo
by Gracie Cavnar
Juvenile Level Books
Silver – Cooking and Food

Contact, Connect, and Network with Gracie

The Alumni Spotlight is a periodic feature on the official Mom’s Choice Awards® blog. It is part of our ongoing effort to “shine the spotlight” on you and your award-winning, family-friendly products, services, and media.