 Chefs and Kids Create with SoyfoodsLinda Funk, The Soyfoods Council Executive Director “Never work with kids or animals,” said the grumpy W.C. Fields. Think about it - you seldom see chefs and kids in the kitchen together on “Top Chef” or other TV cooking shows or competitions. But here in Des Moines five professional chefs proved Mr. Fields wrong. Each chef brought her/his child, or a young family friend, to our very unique Child and Chef cooking competition. Here at the Soyfoods Council we regularly work with chefs and foodservice experts, showing and telling the many benefits of soyfoods in away-from-home meals. But we hadn’t worked with children before. So why kids? We all already know of the concern about childhood obesity and how important it is to help kids learn to eat right and to move more. A recent nutrition study at the National Cancer Institute showed that girls and young women who eat soyfoods have less chance of getting breast cancer. And other studies show that kids of both genders aren’t getting enough calcium, yet another benefit of many soyfoods. Of course it’s already a fact that replacing higher fat proteins with high quality, low fat soy can help keep calories, and thus weight, down. We also know that restaurants are ever more eager to add healthy and kid-pleasing items to their menus. With all that in mind we created the competition for chefs to work with children to develop recipes that kids could prepare or help prepare and, most importantly, eat. Our chefs came from restaurants, chef training schools and universities and their young assistants children ranged in age from six to 12. I was one of the judges and I must say how impressed I was by how the teams worked together and the quality of the food and the presentations. Other judges were: Devin Alexander, host of the Discovery channel’s “Healthy Decadence” and author of “Fast Food Fix” and “The Biggest Loser Cookbook”, and Chef Robert Anderson, chair of the Iowa Culinary Institute, a culinary program to train chefs. For the Chef and Child Soyfoods Contest each chef and young partner created a healthful, kid-friendly recipe and then the team demonstrated its recipe to the audience of food editors. The food editors were in Iowa to tour soybean fields, hear from soybean researchers and to experience the unique Iowa State Fair. They were very impressed by the chef/child teams and the variety and versatility of the recipes. Kids Recipes Click on the recipe name below for complete recipe |