Today we’re handing the keyboard over to our art director, Anna. She’ll be sharing more of the juicy details from our happenings last week that you may have seen on insta.

My brain is finally sifting through all the information it inundated with last week. For the second year in a row, we were in Almedalen with our non-profit initiative #friskmat – which during the past year has become a non-profit association that you can become a member of. (friskmat translated means “wellness food”) This year’s visit looked quite different from last year since this time we arranged both mingle and a breakfast seminar. A lesson we rookies picked up from last year was that the biggest takeaway from this event was the creating and strengthening of new contacts. So this year, the focus was on meetings, networking and information gathering (…as well as some tossing around of beach balls of course).

The association is currently working on two main things. The first is to drive public opinion on the importance of nutritious, good and appetizing food in the public sector to counter lifestyle-related diseases. If you follow the association on instagram, you have seen how diligent we have been in writing articles for the past nine months. We can proudly state that more than 90 articles have been published. The other thing we do is lay the groundwork to be able to build a community for the grassroots work within public food sectors. We dream of a place where school cooks, nurses, in-home care staff and kitchen assistants – basically anyone who works in public sector food – can gather and receive education, inspiration and go on to share their knowledge with colleagues all around the country. And HOLY GUACAMOLE what positive responses we’ve received from professional kitchens on that idea! We also received some great input regarding that work! We are so excited about continuing! Can’t write enough exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Tuesday morning we also held a round table together with Generation Pep based on the PepReport 2019 which they released earlier this spring. The issue we took up at breakfast in Rosa Gården (thank you Project MatLust for letting us take up space in your garden) was “How can society help children and young people to make more healthy choices?”.  Sitting around the table was a very competent team with a lot of sharp people gathered together. 

In summary, there was a great consensus that the solution lies primarily in more knowledge, mainly among parents and educators, but also in ensuring that the unhealthy choices are not made so readily available to children. As Generation Pep’s report shows, 98% of the children know what choices are in their best interest, yet only 2 out of 10 actually get enough fruit and vegetables on a daily basis.

All participants in the conversation were to define a task for themselves, something they can do to contribute to a positive behavior change. We’ll then follow up a year from now. Some of the tasks among us are as such – Anna-Karin from Sweden’s National Food Administration chose to start a review of the country’s school cafeterias and what they offer. Fredrik at Capio will work to get information about the importance of healthy eating from childrens very beginnings out to the parents of the 65,000 small children who are listed in their pediatric care centers. And Mats and Ulrika plan to organize a number of seminars in the Parliament throughout the year to create awareness among their Parliament colleagues about the urgent need to lift diet as part of preventive health care.

Pretty cool right? For heaven’s sake, things are really gonna happen now!

Here in the picture you can see enthusiasts Catharina and Frida with me at the event. Catharina and Frida are true rock stars who work with this completely voluntarily – what would we be without you?!!!!

Yeah so, as I mentioned earlier, my brain has finally begun to wind down after all of this excitement and yet what I’ve mentioned here is just a small part of the amazing things we conjured up. We are so looking forward to transforming this experience into practical work in the coming autumn.

But first – a little summer vacation!

This is a guest post. The opinions expressed are the writer’s own.