Students Cook Up Batch of Healthy Foods

By DAVID FISHER/ecoRI News staff

The contest winners from the Met School Yanilka Hernandez, Genesis Mercedes and Karissa Arias. (David Fisher/ecoRI staff)PROVIDENCE — Students from three city high schools participated Friday night in a cooking competition dubbed “Iron Chef: Providence.” The three teams had 45 minutes to prepare their dishes from raw ingredients. The dishes and teams were then judged in a breadth of areas, from flavor and nutrition to presentation and teamwork.

The only rules of the competition were: an eye toward nutritional value had to be used when shopping and the ingredients couldn’t cost more than $10 and had to be bought in a neighborhood corner store. The students cooked the meals in front of the audience that had gathered at Feinstein High School.

Ashley Benson, Sahymi Ciprian and Jesus Holguin from Feinstein High made pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers and basil, with fresh fruit and yogurt for dessert. Jennifer Sanchez and Miguel Ruiz of Alvarez High School made a veggie and tofu stir-fry over brown rice. Met School students Yanilka Hernandez, Genesis Mercedes and Karissa Arias prepared a black bean and corn quesadilla with avocado and salsa. All of the dishes looked and smelled terrific.

The Met School team’s recipe was judged the winner. Sodexo chefs with use the students’ recipe to make and serve veggie quesadillas, in whole-wheat tortillas, throughout the city’s public school district.

“This experience has made me be more open to new foods,” Karissa said. Yanilka, who works as an intern at Silver Star Bakery, said it was fun learning how to prepare and cook healthy foods.

Last week’s event kicked off the Providence Healthy Corner Store Initiative. The program brings together the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, Farm Fresh Rhode Island, Kids First, the state Department of Health and two pilot stores — New Battambang, 366 Elmwood Ave., and Mi Quisqueya, 933 Broad St. — to bring a greater variety of fresh, high-quality, high-nutrition, locally grown vegetables to neighborhood stores on the South Side.

The initiative also is working to bring whole-grain breads and pastas, low-salt and low-sugar canned goods and healthier snacks to corner stores around the city.

“Everywhere in America, the cheapest, easiest-to-find food is also the worst for you,” said Amelia Rose, director of the Environmental Justice League. “The Providence Healthy Corner Store Initiative is working to change this. We want to make healthy food the easy option for Providence residents by getting healthier options into corner stores in our neighborhoods.”

The initiative was precipitated by an assessment by South Providence Neighborhood Ministries, in coordination with the Department of Heath that found only five stores in South Providence that simultaneously carry whole fruits and vegetables and 1 percent milk. They also found that even in stores that did carry produce, in many cases, the produce was of low quality.

Most of the neighborhood stores in Providence accept WIC checks, and in some cases, a majority of the financial intake of these stores is state reimbursement for WIC and EBT transactions. The Department of Health’s new WIC voucher program provides families receiving assistance with checks for $6, $8 or $10 weekly for the purchase of fruits and vegetables. Whether they are canned, frozen or fresh, is up to the consumer.

“These students showed the audience that cooking and eating healthy can be fun, affordable and delicious,” Rose said. “Now it’s the community’s turn to show storeowners that there’s demand for healthier products so that both our local economy and our community’s health thrive.”