By Brittany Wright
CHICAGO — An entrée of oven-fried chicken, leafy greens and cabbage salad, and sweet potato salad will soon be served at one of the hottest spots of the Chicago dining scene – the school cafeteria. The delectable dish was created by students from Chicago Vocational Career Academy, winners at a recent Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest. The teen chefs will travel to Washington, D.C., to compete in the Cooking up Change national finals and receive scholarships from Washburne Culinary Institute.
Students from Clemente Community Academy took second place while Richard Career Academy took third. Dunbar Vocational Career Academy’s pumpkin bars won the audience favorite award in the healthy snack category.
“Cooking up Change is the perfect event to move the First Lady’s agenda for healthier school food forward,” said Rochelle Davis, president and CEO of Healthy Schools Campaign. “These students provide an opportunity for all of us—whether you’re a student, chef, mentor, or a participant—to be a part of the debate and dialogue about healthy school food. It also builds the knowledge and community support to really make the change we want to see.”
Cooking up Change engages culinary students in Chicago Public Schools’ Department of College and Career Preparation and the broader community in a dialogue about school food reform and the need for more resources for our nation’s school meal program. Student chefs are challenged to create a healthy, great-tasting school meal that meets high nutrition standards and costs about the same to produce as a regular cafeteria meal, which is less than $2.
The CVCA team hears the announcement that they won the Cooking Up Change competition in Chicago last week. (Photo by HEALTHY SCHOOLS CAMPAIGN)
This year, the student chefs of Cooking up Change took top honors with an ingredient that Chicago Public Schools recently added to its menus: fresh chicken. Chicago Public Schools recently began serving chicken cooked from scratch, using unprocessed chicken from the USDA and from an Amish farm in Indiana. This represents a significant milestone for school food and a popular ingredient with student chefs. Chicago Public Schools features one of the nation’s largest farm-to-school programs. All student teams in Cooking up Change used frozen local produce from this program.
The winners of the Chicago contest will compete in the national finals in Washington, D.C. Student-designed lunches from the contest have been served in schools across the country as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives cafeteria. Recently, First Lady Michelle Obama met with and commended last year’s national winners during a visit to Jacksonville, Fla., where she praised their efforts to promote healthy school food.
“The reality is that no matter how hard our leaders work, changes to school food can’t just be about the grown-ups. Education happens when kids are actively involved in solving problems,” said Christie Vilsack, National honorary co-chair of Cooking Up Change and wife of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “Cooking up Change is a perfect example of that involvement: it’s about doing something, being active and tackling real-life problems.”
Since 2007, Cooking up Change has served as a flagship benefit event for Healthy Schools Campaign, a not-for-profit that advocates for healthy school environments.
