Ready, set, whisk!
You are invited to participate in Cooking up Change, a contest in which teams of college students from across the nation compete to design a healthy school lunch.
Qualifying round. In the first round, you and your team will submit your recipe, a report on the nutritional content of that recipe, and photos of your team during various stages of the process. A judging panel of culinary professionals will evaluate your recipe on format and clarity, originality of the dish, and cohesiveness of the ingredients. In this qualifying round, you will battle against other students from across the nation to receive an all-expenses paid trip to Detroit to compete in the Cooking up Change finals.
Final round. The final round of Cooking up Change will be held at Taking Root, the National Farm to Cafeteria conference in Detroit, Michigan. Student teams selected as finalists will compete in the Cooking up Change finals May 16-18. (The Taking Root conference will take place May 17-19.) All finalists will win a fabulous set of cookware from T-fal! Judges will rank each meal based on taste, texture, and presentation and choose one Cooking up Change winner. All finalists will receive a participation medal and have the opportunity to present their meal to conference attendees during a special session.
All finalists will receive a participation medal and have the opportunity to present their meal to conference attendees during a special session.
Check out the application page or keep reading to learn more!
Keep reading to learn more about:
Assembling a Team
- Teams must consist of three students.
- Contestants must be at least 18 years old.
- Contestants must have previous knowledge of basic culinary skills.
- All team members must be available to travel to Detroit May 16-18, 2010.
- All team members must be familiar with foodservice safety issues. (See Sanitation Rules for detail.)
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Entering the Contest
This contest involves designing a complete meal that fulfills the Institute of Medicine recommendations for nutrition, caloric content, fat content, and other specified guidelines. For more detail, please download the nutritional guidelines:
Download Nutritional Requirements [pdf] »
Your team will use its creativity to design a meal that meets nutritional guidelines and is both appetizing and visually appealing. Choosing only ingredients from the official ingredient list, you and your teammates will design a school lunch that your fellow students will be excited to eat. For more detail, please download the ingredient list:
Download Ingredient List [pdf] »
Contest entries must be received by 5 p.m. EST on March 26, 2010. To apply, you must submit a completed application on the application page; this includes answering all the questions and uploading the materials requested. Please contact Sara Klinzing by email or at 312-419-1810 if you have any questions or would prefer to submit your application by mail. Incomplete entries will not be accepted. A complete contest entry will include each of the items below:
- Registration information
- Recipes
- Nutritional label
- Supplementary questions
- Contact information for representative from foodservice provider
- Photos
For more detail, please download the Contest Entry Checklist:
Contest Entry Checklist [pdf] »
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Creating Your Recipe
- Each school lunch must consist of one entrée and two sides.
- Each component of the school lunch must be comprised of six preparation steps or less.
- School lunches MUST include at least ONE locally grown item* (produce, cheese, etc.)
- Including the locally grown item, school lunches may only use ingredients from the list of items commonly available through foodservice (see Ingredient List).
- School lunches must meet the Cooking up Change nutritional guidelines (see Nutritional Requirements).
- No fried foods are permitted in the recipe.
- Teams may only utilize the following equipment: oven, stovetop, refrigerator, electric mixer, microwave, and other common cooking utensils.
- All recipes must be submitted using the Standard Recipe Form.
* Locally Grown Ingredients. The Cooking up Change Ingredient List includes items that are typically available to food service providers. While you may shop only for ingredients on this list, at least ONE of your items must be locally grown. The ingredient(s) you choose to source locally should be grown or raised within 250 miles of where they are sold. . You can find items local to your area in most grocery stores. To learn more about why using locally grown items is important and to find providers of fruits, vegetables, cheese, meats, and other items produced in your area, visit www.localharvest.org.
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Meeting Nutritional Requirements
Your team’s entrée and two side dishes must together meet the Cooking up Change nutritional requirements, based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine. As part of your contest entry, your team is required to submit a nutrition label for your meal. There are several websites that provide free nutritional analysis tools, including www.nutritiondata.com. (For deatil, see instructions below). You can download Nutritional Requirements here. For questions or assistance in this process, contact Sara Klinzing.
To create a nutrition label at NutritionData.com:
- Go to www.nutritiondata.com.
- Register for the website.
- Under “Tools,” click on “Custom Entry Tool.”
- Copy information for the nutritional label of one ingredient from your recipe into this form.
- Repeat this process for all ingredients in your recipe.
- Choose “My Recipes.”
- Click on “Create Recipe.”
- Enter name of your recipe and preparations steps.
- Near the bottom, enter the first ingredient. (Be sure you are searching in “My foods.”)
- Click the “+” sign on the right to add this ingredient to your recipe.
- Adjust the quantity and measurement.
- Enter in each item for recipe as directed above. Continue until each item is entered.
- After completed, click “Save and Analyze.” A nutrition label for your entire recipe will appear. Be sure to adjust the serving size to get a final nutritional analysis of your school meal.
Once you have a nutritional label for your healthy school meal, compare that label to the Cooking up Change Nutritional Requirements. If your recipe does not meet every requirement, you may need to make adjustments and then analyze again. When you have a final version that meets all the requirements, download a printable version of your nutrition label to submit with the rest of your contest entry documents. Recipes that do not meet the nutritional requirements are not eligible to win.
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Answering Supplementary Questions
Along with your recipe and nutritional analysis, teams must submit answers to a set of questions about the recipe development process. Responses to these questions will be evaluated by the judges alongside the recipe itself. Supplementary questions are part of the application page.
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Foodservice Provider Representative
In order to complete all the supplementary questions, your team will need to reach out to your school’s foodservice provider. You must contact a foodservice representative who can provide you with information about your school’s policy on nutrition. Teams will be asked to provide a summary of that policy as well as contact information for your source.
Submitting Photos
Teams are required to submit a series of photos documenting the team’s progress in developing the recipe. Teams should also include photos of the final lunch. Each team should submit 5 to10 photos, up to 5 MB total. Photos may be submitted on the application page.
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Contest Judging
School lunches will be evaluated by a prestigious panel of judges comprising culinary and foodservice professionals. To review the specific judging matrix for each round, see the sample judging forms.
Download sample judging forms [pdf]:
Qualifying Round Judging Form »
Final Round Judging Form »
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Important Dates
- March 26: Contest entries must be submitted on the application page by 5 p.m. EST.
- April 12: Teams that have been selected to move on to compete in the final round in Detroit are notified.
- May 16: Finalists travel to Detroit.
- May 17: Finalists prepare their dish and serve to judging panel.
- May 18: Winner is announced. Teams return home.*
* Students are invited to stay and participate in the remainder of Taking Root, the National Farm to Cafeteria conference. For more information about the conference, click here.
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Helpful Documents
You can download documents related to the contest here.
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Official Contest Rules
Entries (words or images) may NOT contain: Any copyrighted material for which you do not demonstrate the rights to use; third party stock photography or artwork for which you do not demonstrate the rights to use; nudity, lewd or vulgar behavior; offensive language and/or gestures.
All entries must be appropriate for all audiences. Entries (writing, photos) referencing sex, drugs, or violence will not be accepted as entries. Any entry that includes content that is deemed inappropriate, indecent, obscene, as determined by Healthy Schools Campaign in its sole discretion, will not be eligible.
Entrants represent and warrant that (i) the entries (writing, photos) that they submit: are their own original creations and do not infringe any other person's or entity's rights; (ii) they have obtained permission, if applicable, from the people featured in the photo to enter this contest; and (iii) the submission of the idea will not violate any enforceable agreements or understandings submitter has with any third party. Entries must be an original creation.
Entrant further represents and warrants that the entrant has obtained permission from each person whose name, image or likeness is included in the submission, and that such person(s) have granted entrant all necessary rights to use the person’s likeness as described in these rules, and that entrant can make written copies of such permissions available to the sponsor upon request. If the likeness of a minor is included, such grant of rights must include written permission from the minor’s parent or legal guardian authorizing the use of the minor’s likeness on behalf of the minor.
Entrants agree to indemnify and hold harmless Healthy Schools Campaign, National Farm to School Network, any of the contest’s sponsors, and their employees, representatives, and agents from any and all liability, loss, damage, cost or expense, including reasonable counsel fees and expenses, paid or incurred by reason of its breach of any of the obligations, covenants, representations or terms contained in these contest rules or by reason of its intentional or grossly negligent conduct relating to performance of this agreement.
Use of Winners’ Names and Likeness
Each winner who accepts any prize will be deemed thereby to have granted to Healthy Schools Campaign the right, at any time and from time to time, to print, publish, broadcast and use, worldwide and in any media now known or hereafter developed, including but not limited to, the Internet and world wide web, the name, portrait, picture, voice, likeness and biographical information of each such winner as news or information and for advertising and promotional purposes without additional consideration, except where prohibited by law.
Disqualification
Healthy Schools Campaign reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any participant that it determines, in its sole discretion, is ineligible to participate in the contest.
Grant of Rights in Words, Images and Videos Submitted
Submission of an entry constitutes the irrevocable right to the Healthy Schools Campaign of all rights in the words or images, all rights to use, copy, sublicense, edit, modify, make derivative works, publish, exploit, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, publish, delete or display the content of and elements embodied in the entry, in whole or in part, in perpetuity in any and all media (whether now existing or hereafter devised) without limitation, and the unconditional right to use the idea and statements about the entry for advertising/publicity purposes without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law.
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Get Cooking!
Questions? Check out the FAQ page or contact Sara Klinzing at 312-419-1810. Click here to enter the contest!
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* Please note: The all-expense paid trip includes air fare, transportation throughout contest activities, hotel, and three meals per day on trip. All said details will be preplanned; no per diem will be given. Same-sex students will share hotel rooms.
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