Zooey Deschanel's 2-Year-Old Daughter Likes Salad More Than Most Adults

Zooey Deschanel wants us all to be more aware of what we’re eating. The New Girl actress and mother of two is dishing on the importance of knowing where your food comes from in a new educational series with The Farm Project and ATTN: called “Your Food’s Roots with Zooey Deschanel.”

The star, who is mom to 2-year-old Elsie Otter and 6-month-old Charlie Wolf, said that becoming a parent made her want to be aware of what foods would be “the best thing for our child’s brain.”

“When I started looking into where our food was coming from, we all of the sudden starting seeing all this opaqueness—there were all these walls to finding out where your food came from, but that is a part of how we socialize, how we interact with our peers,” Deschanel told People.

“There are a certain amount of restaurants that tell you which farm your food came from, but most places don’t know, and a lot of places can’t tell you where your beef or chicken comes from,” she continues. “We started realizing that wall was making it difficult, though we were curious and slightly obsessive and even we were having trouble finding out.”

In the 5-episode series, Deschanel will interview experts and growers about where our food comes from and the potentially harmful production processes that harvest it in the hopes of educating viewers to make smart choices when it comes to their next meal. The knowledge has lead the actress and her husband, Jacob Pechenik, to start growing their own produce.

“We have an organic farm in Texas that grows a lot of stuff, but at our house we grow leafy greens and lettuces, different herbs, tomatoes, squash, zucchini,” she told People. “When you grow your own food, it’s exciting and your kids get excited.”

“Our daughter might not eat a piece of broccoli if you bring it to her on a plate, but if she gets to pick it herself she gets so excited and wants it!” Deschanel said. “And then she wants to try everything—the arugula, the herbs.”

“She can eat romaine, so I’ve just started making more romaine lettuces, and the arugula just has to be chopped up really small,” she added.

The first episode of “Your Food’s Roots with Zooey Deschanel” is available now on Facebook.