Skip to footer

Kids' State Dinner celebrates healthy lunches

Michelle Obama hosted the second Kids' State Dinner at the White House on July 9. The guests were 54 American children who had submitted winning recipes for a healthy recipe contest sponsored by the White House and Epicurious.

|
Yuri Gripas/REUTERS
President Obama was a surprise guest at the second Kids' State Dinner hosted by first lady Michelle Obama at the White House to honor the winners of a nationwide recipe challenge to promote healthy lunches.

State dinners at the White House are a big deal. President Obama dines with world leaders, discussing issues and ideas over the finest cuisine. But it wasn't British Prime Minister David Cameron or Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai eating with the president today.

Fifty-four young children from around the country were the guests of honor at the second Kids' State Dinner. They received the invite to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. thanks to winning recipes they submitted to the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, a campaign put on by first lady Michelle Obama. A panel of judges evaluated more than 1,300 recipes from the 50 states and four US territories to determine which kid-created dishes are the most healthy, delicious, and affordable.

Meals with names like Sneaky Chili Surprise and Bring It On Brussels Sprouts Wrap were judged by professionals from Epicurious.com and the D.C. Central Kitchen, and they did not disappoint.

"There's been some dynamite dishes. I mean, really," said White House chef Sam Kass, who is also the executive director of Mrs. Obama's Let's Move! initiative. "There's a couple of things I would cook for the first family out there."

Inside the East Room the children were welcomed as honored guests.

"Coming to the White House, it's a big hassle, isn't it?" Mrs. Obama asked to much laughter when addressing the children and their parents. Encouraging young people to eat healthy and be active, she said that "it's about making sure that your body can be strong and healthy, and your mind can be ready to learn and explore and dream."

The first lady's husband made an unannounced stop by the dinner, congratulating the children for winning the challenge. "Keep it up. You guys are going to set a good example for everybody across the country," President Obama said.

The cooking website Epicurious.com partnered with Mrs. Obama to put on the event and organize the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge. "[Mrs. Obama] as a mom understands as I do how important it is to get kids in the kitchen to understand what healthy eating is and how important it really is," said Epicurious editor-in-chief Tanya Steele.

"You don't think that 9-, 10-year-olds are going to come up with this as an option for school food, but it's gratifying to see," D.C. Central Kitchen CEO Michael Curtin said.

You can download the official 2013 Healthy Lunchtime Challenge Cookbook here. 

Wire material was used for this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Kids' State Dinner celebrates healthy lunches
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Food/Stir-It-Up/2013/0709/Kids-State-Dinner-celebrates-healthy-lunches
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe