Ready, set, whisk!
You are invited to participate in Cooking up Change, a contest in which teams of high school 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 May 16-18, 2010 in Detroit, Michigan. The three teams selected as finalists will travel to Detroit to demonstrate their cooking chops and cook off for a prestigious panel of judges. All finalists will win a fabulous set of cookware from T-fal! The judges will rank each meal based on taste, texture, and presentation. One team will win top honors and return home with a first place trophy and other awesome prizes. All teams in the final round will get an opportunity to share their delicious creations with conference attendees.
Check out the application page or keep reading to learn more!
Keep reading to learn more about:
Assembling a Team
- Each school may enter one team. Teams must consist of three students.
- Every student who wishes to participate must be enrolled in a school- sponsored culinary program, cooking class, or after school cooking club. Students must have knowledge of basic culinary skills.
- Students must have a teacher affiliated with the school culinary program or cooking club willing to mentor the team.
- This teacher and all students on the team must be available to travel to Detroit May 16-18, 2010. (Additional chaperones may be required depending on your school’s policy.)
- At least one student on team or accompanying chaperone must have his/her foodservice sanitation certification.
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Entering the Contest
This contest involves designing a complete meal that fulfills requirements based on 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 [.doc] »
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 [.xls] »
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
- Copy of foodservice sanitation certificate for at least one team member or chaperone
- Recipes
- Nutritional label
- Supplementary questions
- Photos
For more detail, please download the Contest Entry Checklist:
Contest Entry Checklist [pdf] »
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Creating Your Recipe
- For this contest, you will be creating a school lunch that consists of one entrée and two sides.
- Each component of the school lunch may include no more than six preparation steps.
- School lunches must include at least one locally sourced item (produce, cheese, meat, 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.
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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 recipe will appear. Be sure to adjust the serving size to get an accurate nutrition label. Repeat this process for all three of your recipes.
Once you have a nutritional label for each of your three recipes, (one entrée and two side dishes), compare them to the Cooking up Change Nutritional Requirements. The three components together must meet the nutritional guidelines. If your complete school meal 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 each of your nutrition labels to submit with the rest of your contest entry documents. School lunches 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 along with the healthy school meal itself. Supplementary questions are part of the application page.
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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 five 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.*
* Finalists must be available to travel to Detroit on Sunday, May 16 and stay until the afternoon of Tuesday, May 18. We will arrange for contest-related travel, hotel accommodations and meals, and these costs will be covered by the contest organizers. Teams are also encouraged to stay after the contest to attend the Taking Root Conference which will continue through Wednesday, May 19th. Teams that stay in Detroit beyond the Cooking up Change Healthy Cooking Contest’s conclusion do so at their own cost or through scholarships (if they are available) and must be properly chaperoned. Teams that are interested in extending their stay to attend the Taking Root Conference should contact the National Farm to School Network about scholarship opportunities and for other conference details.
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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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