Joliet Junior College hosts ISBE student-teacher nutrition event

“I’m scared,” Mirrah Wren of East St. Louis School District 189 said as she eyed her portion of a Southwest wheat berry power bowl.

Wren already had tried a bite of chicken and mushroom Alfredo with whole grain pasta and deemed it bland. Finally, she took a bite of the Southwest dish and then another.

“It’s not bad,” Wren said. “It’s like a taco.”

Jade Flowers and Mykirah Roberts, also of East St. Louis School District 189, enjoyed the unstuffed pepper and squash casserole.

Wren, Flowers and Roberts were three of about 200 Illinois high school students and their teachers who spent part of Friday at Joliet Junior College’s city center campus for a taste-testing event of their own recipes.

The event was the culmination of their participation in the USDA’s Team Nutrition School Meals Recipe Development grant.

Michael McGreal, chairman of JJC’s culinary arts department, said students with their teachers submitted recipes to the Illinois State Board of Education featuring vegetables that are common in Illinois.

The recipes also met the USDA guidelines for the school lunch program in terms of sodium, calories and no trans fats, McGreal said.

“This is a great way to have students involved in making and eating healthier meal options and especially those that feature the vegetable sub-group,” McGreal said.

JJC chefs then tweaked the recipes with professional methods to make them easier to produce in schools with more consistent results and then prepared tasting portions of all the recipes for students and teachers to sample on Friday, McGreal said.

“Some of the items are really unique,” McGreal said in the email, “such as a butternut squash Alfredo with whole wheat pasta.”

Field trips and culinary careers

Timothy Murphy, ISBE spokesperson, said ISBE applied for the USDA Team Nutrition grant, which included sub-grants to high schools across Illinois. Schools then applied for funds to educate their students before creating the recipes. For instance, some schools held field trips to various farms so the students could learn about Illinois agriculture, Murphy said.

“The taste testing is the big final piece,” Murphy said.

The following Illinois school districts received up to $10,000 in Team Nutrition School Meals Recipe Development Grants: Cahokia Unit School District 187, Decatur Public Schools District 61, East St. Louis School District 189, Iroquois Kankakee Regional Office of Education, Mount Vernon Township High School District 201, Noble Street Charter Schools, Round Lake Community School District 116, SPEED Special Education Joint Agreement District 802.

Murphy said ISBE was “really excited to be working with Joliet Junior College and it was a chance for students to “get a taste” of culinary careers, too.

“They’ve got a top-of-the-line program and these kids are going to be exposed to potential careers in culinary and going to see the next step by what’s going on at Joliet Junior College,” Murphy said. “Some of them might come away even more inspired to get into this.”

How did JJC become involved?

McGreal said he was the keynote speaker for an ISBE “back-to-school” nutrition conference a few years ago, and ISBE knew McGreal has done healthy school trainings for the USDA’s Institute of Culinary Nutrition for about 10 years, McGreal said.

“They were talking about doing some fun school nutrition activities in Illinois and it evolved into this really neat event,” McGreal said. “The chefs from JJC are really excited to participate.”

Beth Tanner, principal consultant in ISBE’s nutritional department, said participating schools “fully and completely” embraced the project from start to finish.

Learning about healthy eating

So Friday morning, students and teachers met with chefs, who explained how they tweaked the submitted recipes “into something lunch servers could actually make, Javier Reyes Gutierrez, JJC culinary arts purchasing specialist, said.

Paul Bringas, a JJC chef instructor, said that meant adjusting the basic recipe to serve up to 150. He praised the student-created recipes, especially the butternut squash and chicken tikka with masala, turkey black bean and roasted corn chili and Asian veggie burrito.

“We had a lot of fun doing it,” Bringas said.

Mark Muszynski, a JJC chef instructor, said helping with recipe preparation even benefitted JJC culinary students. When the students thought some of the low-sodium recipes tasted too bland, they brainstormed other ways to add flavor, Muszynski said.

“It’s fun to see the high school kids learn about healthy living,” Muszynski said.

Gregory Clemons, culinary Instructor at East St Louis School District 189, said he was pleased for the students’ opportunity to contribute to the Illinois lunch program.

Pam Kibbons, assistant superintendent of business at Round Lake Community School District 116, said the Round Lake students’ “wonderful experience” was enhanced with the help of Erica Arlinsky, vice president of operations at OrganicLife LLC, who even showed students the most efficient way to grocery shop, Arlinsky said.

Carolina Vilchis, a student at Round Lake Community School District 116, loved the broccoli pieces in the creamy broccoli potato soup with turkey bacon cheddar cheese and the hints of lime and cilantro in the pork tacos with roasted corn and cucumber salsa.

While developing the recipes, Vilchis said she learned spaghetti sauce didn’t have to come from a jar, that she could whip up a from-scratch version herself.

“So I went home and made some for my mom,” Vilchas said.

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 10

Krishaun Mays, a Freshman at SALT-RAAC Alternate School in Kankakee wears a chef hat at a nutritional and wellness event hosted by Joliet Junior College on Friday, April 21, 2023 in Joliet. (Gary Middendorf – gmiddendorf@shawmedia/Gary Middendorf)