The Senior Policy Advisor will travel to Denver to discuss the Let's Move! campaign and his experience on the TV show "Chopped"....Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives Sam Kass will continue his role as chief ambassador for the Let's Move! campaign with a trip to Denver, Colorado next week to speak to thousands of nutrition professionals during the School Nutrition Association's 66th Annual National Conference. As of this year, the SNA, which represents more than 55,000 pros, is one of the key partners running the Chefs Move to Schools project for First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign. (Above: Kass in Los Angeles, during his most recent Let's Move! road trip)
Kass will speak at 3:30 PM on Tuesday, July 17th. He'll be discussing Let's Move!, the Chefs Move project, which matches professional chefs to public schools, USDA's new nutrition standards for school lunches, and his experience as a guest judge on a special school lunch episode of Food Network's TV show Chopped, which first aired in November of 2011.
The show featured four cafeteria chefs competing for a $10,000 prize while cooking with the kind of ingredients required in the National School Lunch Program. Kass was moved to tears during the final, emotional judging segment, and told Obama Foodorama that the dueling chefs, all women, showed how truly difficult it is to serve kids healthy, delicious food under very tight budget constraints. He hailed the chefs as "wonderful contestants."
Kass will "share his unique behind-the-scenes perspective of the culinary showdown, including how the program further bolstered his own support of the front-line staff working in America’s cafeterias," SNA said.
In part two of his session, Kass will be joined by Phil Lempert, food advocate and media personality, "for an engaging discussion on the changing perceptions of school meals and school nutrition professionals, and how such programs as “Chopped”—and initiatives like the First Lady’s Let’s Move! and Chefs Move to Schools campaign—are helping to open eyes to the innovations and opportunities in school meal programs across the country."
The conference runs Sunday, July 15th through Wednesday, July 18th, and is the largest such gathering in the nation. More information is at Schoolnutrition.org; on-site registration is still available.
The conference will also "offer more than 90 education breakout sessions, networking opportunities and the largest exhibit hall in school nutrition, featuring 840 exhibit booths packed with nutritious foods and beverages, services, equipment and technology," the SNA said.
Other speakers include fitness expert Denise Austin and Ali Vincent, the first female winner of NBC’s TV show The Biggest Loser, which filmed earlier this year at the White House, during a double episode that featured Mrs. Obama. National awards of excellence in school nutrition will also be presented during the conference.
More information on Let's Move! is at LetsMove.gov; the website for Chefs Move to Schools is at ChefsMovetoSchools.org.
*Photo by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama
