Winning recipes promote health

The Healthy Recipe Challenge was held Dec. 14 when 10 members of CFB Esquimalt tasted six healthy recipes submitted by personnel on base.

There’s a growing movement to eat healthy food at CFB Esquimalt.

To encourage this change in diet, the base held its first Healthy Recipe Challenge.

On Dec. 14, 10 judges from CFB Esquimalt sat down at Pacific Galley in Nelles Block to taste and determine the best tasting dishes from the challenge.

“Earlier last month a call went out to the Formation to submit healthy recipes for judging,” said CPO1 Derek Ferguson, Base Foods. “We wanted to do this to raise awareness about food, diet and healthy choices.”

Six recipes came in from across the Formation:
•    Carrot Muffin – Karen Roberts, Clothing Stores
•    Spaghetti Squash Remix – MS Mark Tipper, BIS
•    Low fat Spaghetti Carbonara – OS Matthew Cormier, Fleet School
•    Roasted Vegetable, OS Dana Kimoto, Fleet School
•    Layered Rice Salad – LCdr Rob Waller, Halifax Class Modernization
•    Fruit slaw – CWO Cate Gaudet, BAdm

“Once you get healthy food in front of you and you like it, the next thing is the portion control,” said CPO1 Ferguson in front of taste testers CPO1 Shawn Taylor, CPO2 Lyn Edmondson, Lt(N) Duane Drew, CPO2 Valerie Saunders, MWO Joe Merritt, Lt(N) Lynda Hinch, Elese Francis, CPO2 Tim Gallinger and Lt(N) Logan Ashley.

“These recipes have healthy cooking methods. They are not deep fried and our cooks have not used butter, but olive oil instead,” said CPO1 Ferguson.

The testers voted subjectively on look and taste of each dish.

After all the votes were in the Spaghetti Squash Remix and Low Fat Spaghetti Carbonara were the winners.

“Now we are looking at suitability to prepare those dishes in the CF kitchen for a large quantity of people. We would like to try to put them on the menu for our diners to try from January to March,” he said.

The Healthy Recipe Challenge stemmed from a partnership between Base Foods and Health Promotion during October’s Veggie and Fruit challenge. CPO1 Ferguson suggested the challenge as a way to include more fruit and veggies into meals on the base.

“This makes people aware of not only the choices they are making, but also how they are preparing their meals. The CF culture is very much about health and fitness. I am very happy with the way it went. The plan would be to run this again next year,” he said.

Shelley Lipke, Staff Writer