Department of Health

Eating Healthy...Kid-style

The Inaugural Healthy Kids Cook Off

January 5, 2017 | 2 min reading time

This article is 7 years old. It was published on January 5, 2017.

"And a child shall lead them..."  This was the case with the latest collaboration between the City of St. Louis Department of Health and Emmis Communications, the First Annual Healthy Kids Cook Off.  This competition was designed to get children into the kitchen with their families to prepare healthy meals and snacks.  The guidance was simple:
  1. Pick your favorite recipe.
  2. Make sure your recipe includes at least one of the following items:  a fruit, a vegetable, or a whole grain.
  3. Limit the amount of saturated fat in your recipe.
  4. Limit the amount of salt and sugar in your recipe.
Sixty-two recipes were submitted from children across the City from classrooms, local YMCAs and the Boys and Girls Clubs.  Recipes covered breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks.  The creativity was evident with recipes like "Purple Power Potion", "Spinach Banana Blueberry Muffins", "Orange & Jicama Salad", and "Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies".  The pictures provided were mouth-watering.  However, there could only be three winners.  The winning recipes were:
  • Green St. Louis Machine's Rainbow Salsa
  • Apple Chicken Salad by Alice C.
  • Health Albacore Buddha Bowl by Zaniyah C.
Pictured below:  Contest winners prepare their winning recipes:

Making Rainbow Salsa


Making Chicken and Apple Salad


Making a Buddha Bowl

Prizes included a $250.00 Amazon gift card and $250.00 Schnucks grocery gift card for each winner.  Mathews-Dickey Boys and Girls Club also won a similar prize for being the agency with the most entries.  Additionally, the children and their family members and/or guests were invited to the Emmis Communications office to recreate their winning recipes.  All recipes including the winning ones can be viewed at:  http://www.now963.com/healthy-kids-cook-off.  A video of the three winning recipes will be available soon on the Department of Health website.

Thank you to everyone involved in this first-year effort!  Hopefully, it will be bigger and better in 2017.

Department of Health
City of St. Louis
  • Department:
    Department of Health
  • Topic:
    Health