Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge teaches youth to create nutritious, tasty meals in food desert scenarios
As the winning senior team, Howard County’s Adelene Westfall, Sarah Lamb, Christian Trombley and Kat Chambers will advance to the 4-H National Food Challenge held at the Texas State Fair in September.
By Rebekah Hall
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Fast Facts:
- Howard County team advances to 4-H National Food Challenge in September
- Teams from 10 counties compete, creating healthy dishes with dollar store ingredients
- 4-H Food Challenge teaches nutrition, cooking, food safety skills
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(Newsrooms: ‘Klasey,’ ‘in 8th graf and ‘Bazare,’‘Jaxxon’ in 9th graf are cq; With art at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjA2hUA)
LITTLE ROCK — For Arkansans who live in communities with limited access to food, creating a nutritious, fresh meal on a budget can be a challenge. Arkansas 4-H youth are practicing this important life skill through the program’s Healthy Living Project, and they put their cooking chops to the test at the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge.
Twenty-two teams from 10 counties competed in the challenge Aug. 4 at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College’s Culinary and Hospitality Management Institute in Little Rock. Teams had 40 minutes to prepare a dish using ingredients available at dollar stores, including peppers and onions, tortillas, canned chicken, rice, and heavy cream.
The judging panel included Cooperative Extension Service family and consumer science agents and specialists. After preparing their dishes, each team had five minutes to present the dish to the judges and explain the nutritional value of the ingredients, provide a cost analysis, and offer recommendations for improving the meal’s nutritional value through food substitutions.
Amanda Welch, 4-H youth development specialist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the competition’s coordinator, said the event encourages youth to work together and apply important life skills.
“This is a team competition, so they really have to work together,” Welch said. “The spin that we have for our state competition is we try to use a lot of foods that you can find in a dollar store or at a corner store, where people don’t have fresh produce at all times, so they can go in there and find a nutritional meal from their Dollar General.”
Welch said the recipes created during the competition will be given to food banks in the state to help clients use ingredients available to them. All food not used during the competition was donated to The Shack, a non-profit ministry helping people in need.
The winners were:
Senior Division
- First place — Howard County Seniors with Spatulas: Adelene Westfall, Sarah Lamb, Christian Trombley and Kat Chambers
- Second place — Grant County Amazing Glazinz: Gracie McGinley, Audrianna Ruiz, Michael Nichols and Aubrey Ottens
- Third place — Grant County Slice, Slice, Babies: Dylan Rogers, Acacia Searcy, Klasey Knoefler and Daley Rogers
Junior Division
- First place — Howard County Food Choppers: Anna Kate McKinnon, Abi Webb, Lily Trombley and Asher Howard
- Second place — Pike County Cooking Clovers: Caden Ballard, Caryson Ballard, Lysander Doyle and Phineas Doyle
- Third place-tie — Drew County Toast Busters: Makayla Jones, Jaxxon Jones, Bliss Becker and Lila Becker, tied with and Grant County’s The 3 Cooketeers: Megan Rogers, Preston Bazare and Riley Campbell.
Nationals-bound
As the winning senior team, Howard County’s Adelene Westfall, Sarah Lamb, Christian Trombley and Kat Chambers will advance to the 4-H National Food Challenge held at the Texas State Fair in September. The team impressed judges with their “Southwest Cheesy Chicken Dip” served with fresh tortilla chips. They competed in the dairy category, and their mystery ingredient was heavy cream.
“We were very shocked by the heavy cream,” Westfall, 16, said. “We thought the ingredient might be cream cheese, sour cream, or yogurt, but heavy cream definitely took us for a loop. It wasn’t something we expected.”
Trombley, 15, said the team has learned to “not be afraid of flavor,” and Westfall agreed.
“Flavor does not hurt,” she said. “That’s one thing we’ve had to learn, is to not be afraid of seasonings, even if you don’t like it. Christian hates onions, but we still put it in the dish because it adds so much flavor.”
Repeat winners
The Seniors with Spatulas team also won the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge in 2021 and earned fifth place at the national competition. Westfall said the team feels more prepared for the National Food Challenge this year. All members said they have learned how to work together and communicate effectively.
“The first thing we noticed in practice was, ‘Holy cow, we don’t want to accept each other’s opinions,’ and that’s a necessity for this competition,” Westfall said.
“You’ve got to learn each other’s personalities,” Trombley said.
The Seniors with Spatulas also said they have used their cooking skills in their daily lives.
“I’ve been at home all week, so I was scrounging around and seeing what I could make,” Lamb, 16, said. “This has helped me a lot. I can put things together.”
Westfall said that because of this competition, she plans to prepare her school lunches in advance this school year.
“I’ve learned so many different recipes through trial and error that work well,” she said. “I would say our families have definitely loved seeing the different experiments and foods that we’ve tried to make.”
4-H is a youth development program operated by the Cooperative Extension Service, part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The program teaches participants life skills through the “learn by doing” model. Program participants gain knowledge through non-formal, science-based, experiential education activities.
To learn more about Arkansas 4-H and its programs, visit the Arkansas 4-H website.
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs to all eligible persons without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Media Contact: Rebekah Hall
rkhall@uada.edu 501-671-2061