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Ben & Jerry's - Admit it. How many times have you run to the grocery store because you needed a Ben & Jerry ice cream cone? Now you can get a preview of it here without leaving your seat. If you love their ice cream, you will love their site. It's chock-full of the philosophy and wit that makes them so popular. Find out who these guys are, and play with their fun stuff. If you still grieve over the discontinuation of your favorite flavor, make sure to visit the flavor graveyard and find peace of mind knowing that at least they have gone to the great Web page on the Net. If you get a craving for the real thing, don't even try to lick the screen--just go to the store like everyone else. Funny thing, though. They make over 50 products, but only 34 of them are available in supermarkets. For the rest, you have to go to one of their Scoop Shops. Their hottest ice cream flavor is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Run to the store right now to try their newest flavor: Tropic of Mango.
Bob's Candies - Haven't you always wondered how those stripes get on candy canes? The answer's here! Visit the candy cane factory to see how it's done. You'll also discover the origin of the distinctive hooked shape and its association with Christmas.
CSPI Kid Stuff - CHOW Club! - How's the food in your school cafeteria? It might be OK, but this site offers suggestions for improving its overall nutrition score. There's also a list of the ten best and worst things you're probably eating (example: French fries = bad; air-popped popcorn = good). Top it off with a selection of great recipes (like English muffin pizzas), and you have one delicious Web site!
Candy USA - If you eat all that good, healthy food Mom gives you, maybe she'll let you have a treat for dessert. Until then, visit this site, where you'll learn a lot about candy and chocolate. There are candy statistics, nutritional info, candy in the news, and even candy contests! According to this site, "The best-selling kids' candy these days is anything an adult wouldn't normally choose to eat: super sour suckers, candies that color the mouth, anything blue raspberry-flavored, and anything with `gross out' appeal." Is that true for you and your friends?
Chiquita Banana - We're here to say that bananas may be the world's most perfect food. Loaded with vitamin B6, they are also a good source of vitamin C, potassium, and dietary fiber. At this kicked-up site you'll meet Chiquita Banana herself and find out what all the singing is about! (You can find the lyrics to the famous song here, too.)
Cooking with Blondee - Kids - Check Blondee's easy pizza recipes, porcupine salad, and butter graham crackers. These nutritious snacks and finger foods are fun to make and delicious, too.
Dairy Council of Wisconsin Nutrition Activities - This is a great site to get "blackline masters" to hand around in class. You'll find material on the site's Food Pyramid, Lunch in Any Language, Breakfast Around the World, and Nutritious Nibbles sections. There are also some very tasty links to other nutrition sites on the Net.
Dole 5 A Day: Just For Kids - This site invites kids to learn about the importance of eating five fruits and vegetables every day. Hosted by 42 entertaining fruit and vegetable characters from the Land of 5 A Day, this site is educational fun for children of all ages. New material is added each month, including puzzles, games and nutrition adventures.
Food Fun for Kids - Everything you ever wanted to know about pork, but were afraid to ask Mom, is here. There's an online tour to a pig farm, er, "Pork Producer Farm." While you're at this site, look around at all the recipes and pictures. Friends of pigs will want to pass on this one, but others will say, "Yum!"
Food News Daily - Daily news about food, recipes, health, food safety, nutrition and fine cuisine from internet news sources, with regular updates.
Food and Fitness - This wonderful site is part of Kids Health, one of Net-mom's favorites. Sure, you'll find recipes here, but you'll also discover what vitamins and minerals do, how to eat to play your best at sports, and why water is the beverage of choice when it comes to quenching your thirst.
Godiva Chocolatier - See how sweet life can be. Godiva Chocolate welcomes you to their playground for chocolate lovers. They tempt your palate with chocolate recipes, trivia, and an online catalog for instant gratification. If only the Web would implement those aroma attribute protocols! You will never forget another anniversary or birthday if you register with their free gift reminder service. If that still isn't enough, they have plenty of links to other chocolate sites to help satisfy your cravings.
Green Eggs and Ham: Recipes - Learn how to make three different versions of this traditional Dr. Seuss fan's breakfast. No, you don't have to go out and find green chickens first!
Healthy Choices for Kids Online - Produced by the growers of Washington state apples, this site offers stories, plays, and lesson plans about the food groups. You'll learn about choosing healthy snacks plus find lots of tips for healthy eating. There are also lesson plans and activities to promote good nutrition.
Hershey's KidzTown - Crunchy, creamy, drippy like hot fudge or steaming like cocoa--what could be more delicious than chocolate? Where do they make chocolate? Lots of places, but one of them is in Hershey, Pennsylvania, at Hershey's Chocolate Town, U.S.A. This site has fun facts about chocolate and a tour of the largest chocolate factory in the world. There's also lots of cool info about the Hershey Kissmobile--check the schedule to see when it's coming to your town.
Idea Box: Recipes - Visit this site to find over 30 easy recipes for kids and interested adults or anyone who is just learning to cook! You'll find recipes for holidays and regular days, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Some of the recipes include Chocolate Graduation Caps, Funny Faced Bagels, and Healthy Snowcones.
Jell-O: 100 Years and Still the Coolest - Wow--in a year, 413,997,403 packages of Jell-O gelatin dessert are produced. If you laid the boxes end to end, they would stretch three-fifths of the way around the globe with plenty of room to spare! This site traces the cool history of America's favorite dessert and also offers recipes as well as a place to buy special molds online.
Jelly Belly Online - There are over 40 different flavors of Jelly Belly jelly beans, and some of them can be combined in "recipes" to make still more flavors. For example, chew a Peanut Butter candy and a Grape one to taste Peanut Butter and Jelly. Jelly Bellys have flown on the space shuttle and were served at former President Reagan's inaugural festivities. At this site you can take a factory tour and check out some fabulous art made entirely of--you guessed it.
Kid's Valley Webgarden - Growing flowers and vegetables takes more than a few seeds and some dirt. It all begins with developing a plan and choosing the right place to plant. The people at Kid's Valley Webgarden will tell you when to plant (depending on the weather in your part of the world), what to plant, and how to do it. Then you have to maintain the garden, but don't worry-- they're ready to help. Water, fertilize, mulch, weed; water, fertilize, mulch, weed. Just when you get the bugs all worked out, the fruits of your labor will be ready to enjoy! You will love to visit this gardening bonanza.
Kids Food Cyberclub - You already know your body needs food to keep you healthy, but do you have a good idea about which foods are best for you? Take the nutrition quiz, and then see if you can put the food pyramid together. Remember: junk food is not a food group!
Kids Kitchen - Some of these recipes are described as messy, but great tasting. For example, there are bird's nests--made of melted chocolate, butterscotch chips, and chow mein noodles! There are Fresh Mudburgers too--not what you think--and other culinary delights guaranteed to make your tummy smile.
KidsHealth Kid's Recipes - KidsHealth is one of the best family sites on the Net, and their recipes page doesn't disappoint. Whether you're looking for a breakfast treat (pancakes, oatmeal) or a dinner delight (chili, macaroni and cheese), you'll find some great ideas here. Don't miss the snacks either, especially Ants on a Log and the Train and Trail Mix.
Learn2 Set a Table - Intro - Which side does the fork go on? Does the knife edge go towards the plate or away from it? You'll find the answers to these and other mysteries of life as you learn to set a table. This is not just a casual breakfast table, mind you, but a full-fledged formal dinner table with lots of silver and glassware! Practice the napkin-folding tricks and really show off a terrific table.
Learn2 Use Chopsticks - Intro - We used to feel ridiculous using chopsticks, but not anymore! While we once had to spear our shrimp tempura, now we deftly handle even the smallest morsels of sticky rice. And it's all because of the terrific techniques taught at this page.
M&M's Industrial Candy & Magic - When you eat M&M's, which colors do you eat first? Which colors do you avoid? Take a tour of the M&M factory, and play some funny Shockwave games like Melt the Candy Bar. If you don't have Shockwave, just download the games (Windows or Mac) for use later. Remember, virtual M&M's don't melt in your hand or your mouth, but you'll be hungry for some serious chocolate after you visit this site! You can also get screen savers and wallpaper to make sure there is always chocolate in the house when you want some. Check the site map for the locations of these resources.
Mann's Broccoli Table of Contents - From seed to your dinner plate, follow the virtual path of broccoli, the healthy dark green vegetable. In the Kid's Club you can play some neat games (none involving broccoli, crown jewel of nutrition), but you'll have to visit the Mann's Farm section to learn that broccoli has as much calcium per ounce as milk. You can also get some vegetable clip art and recipes at this leafy green site.
Massachusetts Maple Producers Association - Did you know that depending on the sweetness of the sap, it can take anywhere from 25 to 75 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup? The average, though, is 40 gallons raw to 1 gallon finished. It doesn't hurt the tree to be tapped, as long as you do it the right way. This page explains how you can make your own maple syrup. If you'd rather visit a commercial "sugar bush" and see how it's done, there's a directory of maple producers as well as lots of sticky links.
Milk - It's on Everybody's Lips! - Who should be the next celebrity pictured with a milk mustache? How many milk facts do you know? Head into the Taste Buds department to find the recipe for a Chocolate-Peanut Shake and lots more.
Minnetonka Science Center - Ooey Gooey Recipes - If you want to make your own slime, gak, play dough, sparkly paint--or any other messy stuff that's too much fun, you should check the recipes here. If you try the Singing Cake, let us know how it tunes out.
Nabisco: America's Favorite Food Company! - Are you a twister or a dunker? Any way you eat Oreos, they are America's favorite sandwich cookie treat. Discover the stories behind how your favorite snacks came to be--like Fig Newtons, Barnum's Animal Crackers, and Chips Ahoy cookies. Nabisco also offers a section for healthy living, cooking tips, and recipes, and they challenge you to lots of fun games. You may have to check the directory site map for the locations of these items.
Nutrition Cafe - Try the Grab a Grape game to see how you'll do playing nutrition Jeopardy. Then try to pick a good breakfast, lunch, or dinner in the Have-a-Bite Cafe. This site is a joint project of the Pacific Science Center and the Washington State Dairy Council.
Nutrition Expedition - Go on three different expeditions to solve nutritional mysteries! You'll have to visit several places around the Internet before your journey's end, but if you complete all three, you'll know a lot about calcium, vegetarianism, and how to choose the healthiest meal at a fast-food restaurant.
Nutrition on the Web - Written by teens for other teens, this site won an award in the ThinkQuest competition. The site is in Spanish, German, and English. It has two parts: the Informative section and the Interactive section. In the first part, you'll read some nutrition horror stories, find out what makes up a good diet, and explore some myths. For example, some kids believe that eating a vegetarian diet is always more healthy. The fact is that "vegetarian diets, which contain absolutely no animal products, are very low in vitamin B12 and, unless carefully planned, may be deficient in vitamin B6, riboflavin, calcium, iron, and zinc. Strict macrobiotic diets, which include everything except grains, are extremely hazardous. More moderate vegetarian diets that include milk and eggs and perhaps fish, and/or poultry, meet the nutritional needs of growing teenagers if carefully planned. This is why many adolescents that are vegetarians are also anemic." The interactive section of this resource asks you to input your weight, height, and age, and it will tell you how many calories you need to eat per day to maintain your weight. There's also a diet planner, a nutrition database, and more. Some things require an account (free!), but you don't have to give your real name.
Oscar Mayer Virtual Lunchbox: Home - If you wish you were an Oscar Mayer wiener, you'll want to spend a lot of time at this site. There are the usual recipes, contests, and company jabbering, but what caught our eye was the interactive History of the Wienermobile. With or without Real Audio, it's hot! The first hot dog on wheels toured the streets of Chicago in 1936. It was only 13 feet long. By the 1950s, the Wienermobile had grown to 22 feet. It had a sound system and a sunroof. By 1958, though, it finally got what it had been lacking all these years. No, it wasn't mustard--it was a bun! Six "Wienebagos" were touring the world by 1988, with the comforts of onboard microwave ovens and other conveniences. In 1995, the latest model is 27 feet long and 10 feet high. We cannot do any better than to quote from the home page: "The model underwent tests in the wind tunnel at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and could really, theoretically speaking, haul buns as it reached speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour." Hot dog!
Peanut Butter Lovers Club - Did you know that about one-third of the U.S. peanut crop goes toward making that famous American staple: peanut butter? Runner peanuts, grown primarily in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, are the preferred type to use. This is because they are uniform in size and it's easier to get them all evenly roasted. At this site you can find out how peanut butter is made, discover how nutritious peanut butter is, and play a fun trivia game.
Planet Twinkie - How do you feel about Twinkies--you know, those delectable cream-filled sponge cakes? Most people either love them or hate them, but they must be doing something right because millions are sold each year. Here you'll find a whole "planet" dedicated to this snack food, including games about Twinkies, Web sites about Twinkies, and even wacky scientific experimentation with, what else: Twinkies!
The Popcorn Board - There's more to popcorn than movie theaters! It's believed the first use of wild corn was for popping. Although it probably originated in what is now Mexico, it was grown in China, Sumatra, and India long before Columbus arrived in the New World. At this site you can get more popcorn history as well as popping tips (there's a way to save the kernels that don't pop). Don't miss the arts and crafts suggestions or the games, either.
The Story of Chewing Gum - The first patent for chewing gum was granted in 1869--to an Ohio dentist. The most popular flavors are cinnamon, spearmint, and peppermint. Are those your favorites, too? Kids in North America spend approximately half a billion dollars on bubble gum every year. This site lets you chew on gum history and provides hints on how to get gum out of your hair and off clothing and carpet.
The Story of Florida Orange Juice - From the Grove to Your Glass - This page explains how citrus farmers decide when their crop is ripe. Citrus fruits do not continue to ripen after they are picked, so oranges have to be harvested at their peak. Crews pick most of the crop by hand, and then the oranges are transported to the processing plant for grading and juice extraction. The whole journey is pictured and described here.
The Story of Milk - Cows make milk to feed their baby calves. But after the baby is eating other food, the cow continues to make up to eight gallons of milk a day! Cows are milked in a special room called a milking parlor, and their milk is pumped to stainless steel holding tanks and immediately chilled to 38 degrees. It waits until the milk tanker truck comes to pick it up. This happens twice a day. When it gets to the milk processing facility, the milk goes through two other steps, homogenization and pasteurization, but you'll have to read about those at this Web site. The main level has cow-related games and other fun.
Veggie Kids - Sometimes kids don't like the same tastes their older brothers and sisters do. Here are some kid-approved vegetarian meals that you might ask your parents to try. There's a lentil dish with alphabet pasta, "corny" mini-muffins, and a special party "Hummm!us" dip made out of peanut butter! There are also tips for raising kids to love their veggies.
Welcome to the Vita-Men! - There are 13 vitamins, and they are the superheroes of your body. They help you stay healthy and help support many basic body functions. Check out the Vita-Men (and women) online trading cards to learn about each of them and how they help you. Remember, they are the Vita-Men and they're OK.
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