The Challenge
Modern society has fallen short on setting future generations up to lead healthy, productive lives. At the core of this is a failure to provide appropriate nutrition to our kids during their most fundamental stage of growth and set them up with good habits for continued health.
Specifically, here in the US, 1 in 5 of our children are clinically obese, and that rate is increasing. The incidence of Type 2 diabetes has doubled since 2008. Lifestyles are becoming more sedentary, life expectancy is decreasing, and health care costs are spiking due to this epidemic.
The Solution
To put an end to this, we need to act fast, and we need to start now. Convincing kids to eat a diet of beets and broccoli three times a day isn’t going to work. We need to meet them where they are, with foods they love, but with foods that offer them the nutrition they need. For growing bodies in particular, the right nutrient composition of foods is paramount to healthy growth. The body calls for nutrients through hunger. Accordingly, the body calls for much more food if the food is nutrient-deficient, driving up total calorie intake which results in over-eating and weight gain. Producing high-quality, nutrient-dense, kid-friendly foods will help our next generation develop good eating habits and lead healthier, more productive lives.
TETON TASTE BUDS
Grass fed beef and veggies too, a tasty and healthy choice for your family and you!
Powered by mushrooms, carrots, and butternut squash, Teton Waters Ranch’s Taste Buds products are blended to be high in flavor and nutrients, yet lower in saturated fat, sodium, cholesterol and calories. They are a nutrition and taste win-win: Kids don’t notice, and parents, K-12 foodservice and conscientious restaurants can feel good about serving them.
When compared to the average hot dog, Taste Buds products have:
- 0 grams of sugar
- 38% less sodium
- 50% less saturated fat
Look for Teton Taste Buds hot dogs, meatballs, burgers and corn dogs coming to a store near you in 2023!
“Kids love the taste of these products and parents feel great about serving them because they are a more healthful, affordable, and convenient solution to get kids to eat better. No sugar, no antibiotics, 50 percent less sodium and 38 percent less saturated fat than the conventional hot dog, powered with veggies and grass fed beef—all rolled into kid-favorite meals,” says Pam Smith, RDN, founder and President of Shaping America’s Plate.
Doing Our Part
In addition to the Teton Taste Buds product line we are proudly partnering with Edible Communities as the primary sponsor for Eat.Drink.Think.Kids, a site featuring carefully curated content and curriculum that sparks curiosity about where food comes from and why it matters.
Furthermore, we are launching a program to get nutritious grass-fed beef into the diets of school-aged kids to get them the nutrition their growing bodies need and establish good eating habits from an early age. The program will partner with local businesses and individuals to raise money to allow us to upgrade school cafeteria meals from commodity beef to nutritious grass-fed beef, at no extra cost to the schools or the families.
We’re kickstarting this initiative in our own backyard. TWR is adopting local Loveland, Colo., Thompson School District to upgrade their cafeteria menus to feature grass-fed hot dogs at no extra cost for the coming school year. This is the tip of the iceberg. We are looking for new partners to upgrade other foods on their menu and looking to expand this program to more communities nation-wide.
Join Us!
To do so, WE NEED YOUR HELP. We are asking for your partnership in these ways:
- ANYONE (individuals/businesses): ADOPT A DISTRICT! We are committed to availing grass-fed beef hot dogs at cost to anyone interested in adopting their hometown district.
- Chefs/Restauranteurs: We’d like you to put a TWR grass-fed hot dog on your menu – a great item for the kids menu. For every hot dog sold, we’ll be upgrading a hot dog in a needy school lunch program to grass-fed.
- Retailers/Grocers: Place TWR hot dog on your shelves and we will line up a direct accrual program for every pack sold to upgrade school hot dogs to grass-fed.
Interested? Get in touch!
We know we will not solve our nation’s health crisis solely with our hot dog upgrades, but we are doing what we can. For us, it’s two-fold: 1) get better food into school lunches to provide that depth of nutrition where it is most needed, and 2) expand awareness of and access to nutritious grass-fed beef. The more grass-fed beef can replace commodity feedlot beef, the greater health we can provide the nation, the greater animal welfare we can secure, and the greater restorative agricultural impact we can have on our pastures.
We hope other responsible food companies will join our efforts of upgrading the diets of our youth. Let’s meet the kid’s nutrition needs with foods they love. And in the process, let’s get them the nutrition they need and provide them a healthier planet to grow up in. Join us!
