Food art, a lesson in eating healthy

Most adults have learned not to play with their food. Not Celeste Alexander.

Alexander, a Fresno State-trained nutritionist, combines her knowledge of food with her passion for art on her blog, Little Plates World, and in the classes she teaches.

What Alexander does is create artful displays of fruits, vegetables and seeds that are delicately arranged in a mosaic pattern. It’s edible art, created for a purpose.

Alexander says she wants to educate as many people as she can about eating more plant-based foods, and do that in a fun, artistic way. Her Instagram page, @littleplatesworld, also features many of her creations.

“Food art and photography has become such a huge thing now on the Internet,” she says. “And what it has done is create a growing interest in what we eat.”

Inside her cozy kitchen recently, Alexander used her chef’s knife to carefully slice, chop and core a basket full of fresh vegetables and fruits. She had purple carrots, fennel, potatoes, squash, cucumbers, pomegranates, avocados, onions, beets and peas.

She arranges the bite-sized pieces of food on a piece of butcher block paper in random designs. She’ll stack slices of cucumbers with colored carrots and encircle them with pomegranate arils.

The aroma, visual display and colors of the foods make them very appetizing.

And that’s the point, Alexander says.

“When you present food in a new way, it can give you a different perspective, you see the color and the beauty of it,” she says. “And you begin to think about how good this food is for your body.”

Alexander says she doesn’t expect busy parents to create mini-masterpieces at every meal for their children. But what she does hope is that they try something simple, like chopping up vegetables and fruit and serving them as a snack.

“Sometimes it’s all about how you present food to get children to try it,” she says.

In her classes and with her clients, she talks about the nutritional benefits of the vegetables, fruits and seeds she uses. She likes to include a little history of the foods and most importantly where you can buy fresh produce. Alexander is a big supporter of farmers markets and community supported agriculture programs, or CSAs, that offer weekly boxes of produce.

“I want people to try really hard to get away from processed foods,” she says. “Go to a farmers market and look at how gorgeous the food is.”

Alexander’s says those interested in attending her class don’t need any experience in creating art, just an interest in food. She will supply the raw materials, chopped up fruits and vegetables, and offer a few examples. And don’t forget your smart phone or camera to capture your art. Once the class is over, Alexander will provide recipes for using the raw ingredients.

Her next class will be Oct. 24 at Raizana Tea Co., 2011 Tuolumne St., Fresno.

“Go ahead, play with your food, create something new, and then go eat it,” Alexander says.

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Food art, a lesson in eating healthy."