CC Chef Participates in "Chefs Move to Schools" Campaign
Episode # 42
Uploaded: July 22, 2010
Running Time: 4:52
SCHMALFELDT: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.
There are two ways to get kids to eat healthy foods: Teach 'em, or trick 'em! Robert Hedetniemi says, either way is good!
HEDETNIEMI: It's tough to get any kids to eat things that they might not be accustomed to. You can either hide it inside of something that they like… cheese and macaroni you can mix it with spinach, there's ways to do that. Or you can get them involved in the cooking process and explain to them where it comes from, explain that other children their age in different parts of the world, that's all that they eat. Kids only know what you tell them, what they learn, they can only make decisions based upon on what they have been exposed to, so your job as a parent if you want to get better products into your child is to expose them to as much food as possible. Bring them to the farmers market, bring them shopping with you so they understand the background of these products and how to make healthy decisions. Like I said, I have four kids and if I left them to their own choices they would be drinking coke all day, eating sugar snacks…
SCHMALFELDT: But the certified executive chef for the Clinical Center's Nutrition Department is doing more than just making his own kids eat healthy. He's teamed up with First Lady Michele Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign to help solve America's childhood obesity problem. He is one of hundreds of chefs traveling from school to school across the nation as part of the "Chefs Move to Schools" program that pairs chefs with community schools to teach youngsters about better nutrition.
HEDETNIEMI: You can't turn on the TV without seeing Kitchen Nightmares, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, so kids do pay attention to chefs and it is a career choice that a lot of kids are telling their parents that they want to be when they grow up so that kind of influence over children, chefs really have that leeway with them but also that resource that chefs are around food and we prepare product all day long and we can bring something to the table that just telling kids about something is different than having them touch it and feel it and work with it and eat it and understand where it comes from. Most kids think that chicken comes from a package in the supermarket and that's not the truth, and so if you try to tell a child the difference between a red pepper, a green pepper, or what the differences are… they do pay attention. There are not a lot of outlets for that in the public school system to be able to learn those things.
SCHMALFELDT: As a dad, Hedetniemi knows what typical school lunches look like. As a former restaurant owner, he understands the financial pressures involved in running a school food program. But still...
HEDETNIEMI: I'll go and eat lunch with my kids at the school, I always pay attention to what they eat, and they are under a budget and I understand that budget… budgetary constraint, to be able to provide a meal to X amount of kids within a certain budget but a better job can be done. Basically the products that they are putting into our children are hurting the way that they actually learn.
SCHMALFELDT: Chef Hedetniemi brings some pretty impressive credentials to the classroom and to the NIH Clinical Center. Addicted to cooking since his first job working in a restaurant at age 13, he served four years in the Navy and studied culinary arts at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. Before coming to the Clinical Center, he owned three businesses near Hilton Head, South Carolina. He's been with the Clinical Center's Nutrition Department since 2009.
HEDETNIEMI: And the mission of the NIH really excited me, that I can utilize my skills to help a cause that I really believe in which is eradicating disease. I really believe in that cause and I am excited to be a part of a great team and most of the people I've met here are very well educated and treated me with an immense amount of respect and I am excited to be here.
SCHMALFELDT: If you'd like to know more about the Nutrition Department at the Clinical Center, or the First Lady's "Let's Move!" program, visit www.cc.nih.gov. For other information about the NIH Clinical Center, including news about the medical research going on here every day, log on to http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov. From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Bill Schmalfeldt at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
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