On Wednesday, October 16, Rhythm of Health organized a PICNIC – socializing in the yard of the Natural History Museum, on World Food Day. This day dedicated to healthy lifestyles in urban environments was spent together with the students of Novi Sad high schools with whom Rhythm of Health has been successfully cooperating throughout the previous year.
After the initial introduction, as part of the preparations for the picnic, sports and recreational activities were organized, such as limbo dance competitions and the like. After that, workshops “The ABC’s of proper nutrition” and “Preparation of healthy meals” were held, where Dr. Jelena Milesevic, Professor Jelica Mijanović and Aleksandar Bućan addressed the people attending. Everyone expressed their view on the issues we encounter every day when preparing meals, such as freshness and proper food storage, the equipment used, workplace hygiene, nutritional values and food groups. After the workshops, the students gave suggestions for healthy meals and asked everything that interested them. In this way, they prepared for a knowledge quiz and competed in the preparation of healthy meals.
The knowledge quiz, led by Dr. Goran Abraham and Dragana Cvetković, was based on questions from the field of health, and the students were offered answers for which they voted by raising cards in different colors.
Eight teams competed in the preparation of healthy meals. Each team consisted of two members, and the two best teams, selected by an expert jury, competed in the finals in the preparation of a club sandwich from our cookbook. The finalists of the competition were Danijela and Anđela from “Svetozar Marković” Grammar School, Jovana, and Marijana from “Pavle Savić” Techical Shool. During the preparation, the audience encouraged them and made sure that they followed the rules.
The competitors were entitled to one type of assistance; they had limited time to check the recipe, select the ingredients, and prepare the meals. The appearance of the meal, the taste, the nutritional value, the amount of food used and the cleanliness of the table were evaluated. The five-member jury consisted of Dr. Tatjana Jezdimirović, President of Rhythm of Health Association, Dr. Jelena Milešević from the Institute for Medical Research CENM, Aleksandar Bućan Executive Sous Chef, as well as the winners of the show competition in preparing healthy meals, Borislav Poleksić and Nenad Berić, Provincial Secretariat for Economy and Tourism.
At the end of the day, a panel discussion “Plant-based nutrition – trend or choice of the future” was held in the OK club at Spens. In addition to the lecturers, all the people present participated by sharing their experiences. Dr. Goran Abraham, president of the Association “Health in the palm of your hand” from Kikinda, spoke about the health condition of Serbian citizens and emphasized the importance of panel discussions like this. Dr. Tatjana Jezidimirović explained how plant-based nutrition fits into the lives of athletes and citizens who engage in physical activity, with the emphasis on meeting all the energy and nutritional needs of the body. Dr. Jelena Milešević presented the positive and negative sides of a plant-based diet and invited the gathered citizens of Novi Sad to participate in the national study on eating habits, which deals with special groups, such as vegans and vegetarians. Dr. Milešević will be remembered for the sentence “Make your vitamin D, it only takes 12 minutes of sunbathing at noon.” At the end of the lecturers’ presentation, a discussion was initiated, in which the present citizens talked about their reasons for switching to a plant-based diet. This panel discussion was held in Kikinda this summer, and after Novi Sad, a visit to Belgrade is planned.
The project “Let’s have a picnic”, which is implemented under the auspices of OPENS, gathered students from schools that have already had lectures and educational workshops on healthy lifestyles. These are “Svetozar Marković” High School, “7. April” Medical School, “Mileva Marić Ajnštajn” Technical School, “Pavle Savić” Technical School and “Bogdan Šuput” School of Design.
We thank all the students who participated, schools and principals, lecturers, associates, the jury, as well as the Natural History Museum of Novi Sad, OK Club, Urbani povrtari (Urban nurserymen) and of course the program Novi Sad – Youth Capital of Europe 2019.
