#KidsLiveWell Recipe Challenge

This post has been sponsored by the National Restaurant Association and Triberr. All opinions are my own.

I love eating out. Mostly because I don’t have to cook or clean up. But also because it has always been a huge social experience for us. Before I started learning about health and nutrition I didn’t really think too much about food choices. That is one of the reasons why I was 260+lbs. As I began to learn to make better choices for myself I started to notice that there weren’t very many appealing healthy choices for kids. That’s why the National Restaurant Association started the Kids LiveWell program. Kids Live Well is a voluntary program that helps provide parents with a growing sleection of healthful children’s menu choices when dining out. These choices provide meals that are:

600 Calories or less
≤ 35% of calories from total fat
≤ 10% of calories from saturated fat
< 0.5 grams trans fat (artificial trans fat only)
≤ 35% of calories from total sugar
≤ 770 mg of sodium
Each meal must contain two sources of either fruit, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein or low-fat dairy

The National Restaurant Association along with McCormick for Chefs created the Kids Recipe Challenge to help showcase the healthy dining options available for kids dining out. Many food service providers and restaurants submitted recipes for consideration by a panel of Health and Nutriton experts and by a panel of 32 elementary aged children. These kids were going to tell the truth about how good the food was!

Source

So who won? and what did they make that these adorable kiddos (and their parents!) loved?

Bean Sprouts Café & Cooking School- The DoReForMe Sandwich is organic multi grain oat bread spread with sunflower butter and organic strawberry jam and cut into pianokey sized/shaped pieces, served with a skewer of grapes and water. The pumpernickel bread is cut into smaller pieces and placed on top of the wheat bread to represent black piano keys.

O’Charley’s- The Cloudy with a Chance of Spaghetti and Meatball Pizza has grilled sirloin meatballs and spaghetti squash with tomato sauce and wholewheat pizza dough served with apple juice.

Sysco Hampton Roads- The Kids Quesa WOW Dilla is a chicken quesadilla with broccoli, chicken, peppers and corn, served with a side of grapes and water.

UW Health- The Swimming Taco is served with fresh grapes on the side and a frozen banana avocado smoothie.

These winners will be celebrated on May 17th in Chicago, IL at the NRA Show. Follow along on twitter with the hashtag #KidsLiveWell and be sure to check out the website to find a list of the Kids LiveWell providers in your area!

What’s your go-to healthy choice for eating out?