Second Annual Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge Celebrates Healthful Kids' Menu Items

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Restaurant Association announced today the winners of the second annual Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge, an initiative showcasing restaurants' culinary ingenuity for creating healthful menu options for children. Sponsored by founding partner McCormick For Chefs®, the Food Away From Home business of McCormick & Company, and Healthy Dining's team of registered dietitians, the Challenge recognizes delicious and nutritious recipes from children's menus at restaurants and foodservice establishments nationwide.

The Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge involved an "industry tested, kid approved" approach, with a panel of food and nutrition professionals selecting finalists and approximately 30 children choosing the winners at a tasting event at the McCormick World of Flavors store in Baltimore's Inner Harbor Saturday. Kids chose the following restaurants and foodservice companies as winners:

• O'Charley's Cloudy with a Chance of Spaghetti and Meatball Pizza (Multi-unit restaurant company with 20 or more units): The Cloudy with a Chance of Spaghetti and Meatball Pizza has grilled sirloin meatballs and spaghetti squash with tomato sauce and whole-wheat pizza dough served with apple juice. O'Charley's is a casual dining restaurant chain in the United States, with more than 230+ company-owned locations and headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.
  
  
• Bean Sprouts Café & Cooking School's Do-Re-For-Me Sandwich (Independent restaurant or company with fewer than 20 units): Organic multigrain oat bread spread with sunflower butter and organic strawberry jam and cut into piano-key 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. Bean Sprouts Café & Cooking School offers playful, hip and healthful options for dining with kids and has locations in Seattle, Washington and Bay Area, California.
  
  
• Sysco Hampton Road's Kids Quesa WOW Dilla (Contract Managed Food Service):  Incorporating whole wheat, lean protein and vegetables, the Kids Quesa WOW Dilla is a chicken quesadilla with broccoli, chicken, peppers and corn, served with a side of grapes and water. Serving approximately 425,000 customers across the U.S., Canada, the Bahamas and Ireland, Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food products, equipment and supplies to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers who prepare meals away from home.
  
  
• UW Health's Swimming Taco (Independent Noncommercial Food Service): One way to get kids to eat fish is to serve it in a whole-wheat corn tortilla. Pair with diced mango, fresh cabbage and a hint of lime and cilantro, and it will be a hit with kids. The swimming taco is served with fresh grapes on the side and a frozen banana avocado smoothie. UW Health is comprised of the academic health care entities of the University of Wisconsin-Madison: UW Medical Foundation, UW Hospital and Clinics and UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

"We are thrilled by the positive response and excitement we continue to receive from the restaurant and foodservice industry for the Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge," said Dawn Sweeney, President and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. "The Challenge is a great way to celebrate the industry's hard work to create and provide healthful options to children. Congratulations to all of the winners on their dishes that are not only inventive, but nutritious and officially kid-approved!"

"The Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge helps to inspire foodservice chefs to create healthier children's meals," said Megan Ford, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, US Industrial Group, McCormick & Company. "It's important for kids to understand that healthy food can still taste great, and the creative, flavorful entries prove just that."

"The Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge brings tremendous momentum to restaurants as they continue to add more menu choices with health and taste in mind. The Recipe Challenge is an important initiative that helps to contribute to a healthier generation of children," said Anita Jones-Mueller, President of Healthy Dining.

To participate in the Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge, restaurant and foodservice operators submitted recipes that meet the nutrition guidelines from the National Restaurant Association's award-winning Kids LiveWell program.

A panel of food and nutrition professionals selected two finalists per category. Those panelists include:

• Louis J. Basile, Jr., President, Wildflower Bread Company; NRA Director and Chairman of Food and Healthy Living Committee
• Emily Hartline, RD, LDN, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
• Anita Jones-Mueller, MPH, President and CEO, Healthy Dining
• Thomas J. Macrina, President, American Culinary Federation
• Patti Montague, CEO, School Nutrition Association
• Leah Schmidt, President, School Nutrition Association; &
• Dr. Janey Thornton, Deputy Under Secretary Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, USDA

Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge winners will be recognized at the 2014 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago next month.

The Kids LiveWell program launched in July 2011 in collaboration with Healthy Dining to help parents and children find healthful menu options when dining out. To date, more than 145 brands representing 42,000 restaurant locations nationwide participate in the program. The full list of this year's Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge finalists can be found here.

About National Restaurant Association
Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises 990,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets and a workforce of more than 13.5 million employees. We represent the industry in Washington, D.C., and advocate on its behalf. We operate the industry's largest trade show (NRA Show May 17-20, 2014, in Chicago); leading food safety training and certification program (ServSafe); unique career-building high school program (the NRAEF's ProStart); as well as the Kids LiveWell program promoting healthful kids' menu options. For more information, visit Restaurant.org and find us on Twitter @WeRRestaurants, Facebook and YouTube.

About McCormick For Chefs - The Flavor Expert:
McCormick For Chefs^®—McCormick's Food Away From Home division—provides unrivaled solutions to the distinct needs of professional foodservice with its McCormick Culinary®, Lawry's®, OLD BAY®, Thai Kitchen® and Zatarain's® products. Chefs and operators can be confident that McCormick brings more sensory science experience, product innovation and flavor expertise for quality taste experiences. For more information and recipe ideas, visit www.McCormickForChefs.com. Follow-us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mccormickforchefs or find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/McCormick4Chefs and YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/McCormickForChefs.

About Healthy Dining
Healthy Dining provides Americans with the digital tools and resources necessary to find the best restaurant choices for their dietary goals and healthy lifestyles. Combining the brainpower and creativity of chefs, restaurateurs, health experts, registered dietitians and communication strategists, Healthy Dining's signature website, HealthyDiningFinder.com, enables millions of nutrition- and weight-conscious restaurant diners, as well as those dealing with diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and other nutrition-related conditions, to easily find dietitian-recommended Healthy Dining and Kids LiveWell® choices served at more than 60,000 restaurant locations nationwide.

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SOURCE National Restaurant Association