Our first Food Literacy Hero of 2014, Meghan Phillips, is a busy working mom who is the co-Queen Bee of The Honey Agency in Sacramento. When she’s not crafting buzzy marketing campaigns for the food, wine and lifestyle industries, she’s cooking healthy meals for her family and tending to her chickens! Meghan and her fellow bees have been incredibly helpful to us in promoting food literacy in the Sacramento region.

Meghan’s passion for good, honest food stems from her personal food heroes, her parents. They fed four active children nutritious meals while living on a tight budget and also instilled in her the importance of dinner-time as family time. Today, with a family of her own, her parents’ values strongly resonate with her.

“I try to mimic my parents and instill in my children the importance of sitting around the table at the end of the day and sharing the time with family,” Meghan said. “It is important for food to be an appreciated part of the day and not a fast-food session.”

On top of running her own agency, Meghan is first and foremost a mom to a five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son. She knows a thing or two about being a busy working parent!

“We all know on Monday morning everything goes to hell-in-a-handbasket with work, kids and social activities,” Meghan said.

With that in mind, she encourages other busy parents to plan their weekly meals the weekend before so that they can shop wisely and frugally. By Sunday, Meghan and her husband would have planned breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the following week. With a handy list, they will then shop for all the ingredients at the Carmichael Farmers Market and other stores.

Meghan is a fitness buff who enjoys everything in moderation including butter, cheese, bread and wine. She includes fruits and vegetables in every meal for herself and her family, and emboldens her kids to try new vegetables through example and positive reinforcements. Through her experiences with her eldest child, Meghan realizes that parents should not let their kids have too much control over their meal planning as her daughter does not enjoy vegetables as much as her son does.

“Start early. My two-year-old son is a dreamboat.  He will try anything and pretty much likes it all – Brussels sprouts, salads, and even beet juice,” Meghan said.

Besides cooking and eating healthy meals, the Phillips family also adopt a food literate lifestyle through raising their own chickens. Meghan’s husband built a chicken coop in their backyard and the kids feed the chickens and collect eggs for breakfast. She believes that it helps her kids develop responsibility while learning where their food comes from.

Meghan feels that food literacy education is missing in many people’s lives. Consequently, that is hurting their ability to make smart decisions that can help them optimize their health and wellbeing.  That is why she supports the work that California Food Literacy Center does to educate kids on nutrition, where their food comes from and how it can affect them.

“Health, attitude, self-confidence, the ability to learn and propensity to retain information…food has such an impact on our every function that food literacy is an absolute must in my book,” Meghan said emphatically.

Buzzing about The Honey Agency with a spring in her step and a smile in her heart, our Food Literacy Hero is certainly the bee’s knees!

Article by Heather Teoh