If kids grow kale, kids eat kale. If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes. But when none of this is presented to them, if they're not shown how food affects the mind and the body, they blindly eat whatever you put in front of them.

Ron Finley—often called the “Gangsta Gardener”—has made this point in the context of his South Los Angeles community-gardening and food-justice advocacy, where he argues that access and exposure shape eating habits more than abstract nutritional advice. The remark reflects his emphasis on hands-on cultivation as a practical intervention in “food desert” conditions: when children participate in growing vegetables, the produce becomes familiar, desirable, and socially reinforced. Finley typically frames this as both an educational and civic strategy—teaching how food affects body and mind while also rebuilding community agency through gardens in schools and neighborhoods.

Ron Finley’s remark argues that children’s eating habits are shaped less by abstract nutrition advice than by lived experience and agency. When kids participate in growing food, vegetables become familiar, valued, and emotionally “theirs,” making healthy choices feel natural rather than imposed. The quote also critiques environments—especially in underserved neighborhoods—where fresh food and food education are absent; in such settings, children’s diets are effectively outsourced to whatever is most available and marketed. Finley frames gardening as both practical nutrition intervention and cultural re-education: teaching how food affects body and mind, and restoring a sense of control over health through direct contact with what one eats.