Student chefs prepare their meal with Sam Kass, chef to the Obama family, at a briefing on school food policy in Washington, DC

Cooking up Change is a benefit, healthy cooking contest and a spotlight on the tremendous challenges of serving healthy school meals on the incredibly tight budgets that schools face. Culinary arts students from Chicago’s public high schools compete to create a healthy school lunch that exceeds USDA standards, with only about a dollar per meal to spend on ingredients.

Changing the Future of School Food

This year, the stakes are even higher – for the young chefs and for the future of school food. As the student teams assemble ingredients and develop recipes, Congress is beginning to consider the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the federal legislation that provides funding and guidelines for school meals.

The Act, which has been extended one year and is now up for reauthorization in Sept. 2010, has the potential to create a future for school food in which all schools have the resources to provide meals as healthy and tasty as the award-winning lunches the students design.

Student Chefs Bring Healthy Lunch to DC

“When we created this recipe, we never dreamed that we would be able to share it with so many people,” said Rafael Ruiz, a student at Richards Career Academy whose team developed the winning school lunch in HSC’s 2008 Cooking up Change healthy cooking contest: a tasty meal of stuffed green peppers, carrot quesadillas, and refrescante salad.

The impact of the meal that Ruiz and his classmates created extended far beyond the competition: as the focus of HSC’s policy campaign to change the future of school food, the healthy lunch reached students, school leaders and policymakers across the US.

The unique strength of Cooking up Change comes from its power to elevate a meal and a message created by students so that it reaches the plates of their peers nationwide and the elected leaders whose decisions about school food policy affect students’ health so directly.

At the briefing, Ruiz explained: “The best part about cooking is seeing the look on other people’s faces when they taste your meal and enjoy it. I wish I could see the look on the faces of all the students who will be eating this meal today – it’s really good, so I know they’re going to love it! And when they eat it, they’re also going to see that healthy food can be the most delicious. I hope you enjoy the meal today too, and help make it possible for us and our classmates to eat good, healthy food like this every day at school.”

Learn More about the Child Nutrition Act

To learn more, visit HSC's Child Nutrition Act Resource & Action Center.

Raise Your Voice

This reauthorization offers a tremendous opportunity to create a future for school food in which fresh, healthy meals are the norm and all children have access to the type of comprehensive nutrition education that creates healthy habits for a lifetime.

Please join us in taking action for a healthy reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.

Applegate Farms and Healthy Schools Campaign

To take advantage of the opportunity offered by reauthorization, HSC and Applegate Farms are partnering to raise awareness of the challenges surrounding school food and to encourage parents, students and members of the school community to raise their voices in support of healthy school food. Applegate Farms is the platinum sponsor of the Cooking up Change Healthy Cooking Contest and a partner in HSC's Child Nutrition Act advocacy efforts.