MBOMBELA – Chartwells is promoting healthy eating among schoolchildren to improve their well-being while ensuring nutritious daily meals.
It recently hosted a cooking competition at Penryn College where pupils competed against one another to produce a wholesome meal.
Dietitians were present at the school hall to teach the kids about healthy eating.
The pupils were divided into two teams and were expected to cook a healthy, well-balanced and nutritious meal and were allocated 15 minutes to do so. The meal had to be prepared without salt as it is deemed to be one of the causes of heart diseases.
According to Chartwells’ executive chef, Jean van Staden, giving innutritious food to young children is incredibly dangerous because it means they will grow up unhealthy. He said they want to enrich the lives of pupils and the community as a whole through socially responsibility and by planting the seeds of health and wellness.
He added that too much salt contributed immensely to diabetes, heart diseases and strokes among people of different ages.
“We thought that we should have this competition where learners compete to eat healthy. “If we teach them at an early age they are likely to grow up following a good eating pattern,” said Van Staden.
He added that although healthy eating was considered to be expensive, having a balanced meal did not necessarily mean you should go out of your budge to achieve it.
“If you can add a little vegetables, less meat and more fruit to your diet it can make a healthy meal and it doesn’t have to look sophisticated,” he added.
According to Van Staden, Chartwells wants to build sharp minds and strong bodies with a healthy, balanced approach to school dining.
