Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge teams compete to create healthy, tasty meals on a budget

By Rebekah Hall
U of A System Division of Agriculture

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — In many rural Arkansas communities, access to fresh, nutritious food is limited and creating healthy meals on a budget presents a challenge. Arkansas 4-H youth from around the state rose to the occasion recently, putting their cooking skills to the test at the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge on Aug. 4.

JUDGING TIME — Howard County Seniors with Spatulas Christian Trombley, Sarah Lamb and Anna Kate McKinnon present their dish to judges. The Seniors with Spatulas won first place in the senior division at the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge. (Division of Agriculture photo.)

Thirty-two junior and senior teams from 17 counties competed in the challenge, held at the Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute, or CAHMI, at UA Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock. Teams had 40 minutes to prep, cook and clean up their station and used ingredients available at dollar stores, including canned tomatoes, frozen broccoli, pasta and heavy cream.

Each team had five minutes to present their dish to judges and explain the food safety measures taken in preparing it, the nutritional value and the total cost of the ingredients. The judging panel included Cooperative Extension Service family and consumer science agents as well as Renee Smith, former associate dean of CAHMI; Chef Randy Adamson, a graduate of CAHMI; and Ashlyn Ussery, an agriculture and natural resources educator for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Amanda Welch, 4-H youth development specialist for the Division of Agriculture and coordinator of the 4-H Food Challenge, said the program was designed to teach youth culinary skills and help them develop healthy habits for life.

“The Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge was created for 4-H’ers to apply their nutritional and culinary knowledge at a fun, friendly state competition that mirrors the National 4-H Food Challenge,” Welch said. “It is a lot easier for a person with poor eating habits to improve when they’re given resources that are convenient and accessible to them. It's vital that we educators help our youth be proactive in making and creating healthy lifestyle choices with foods that are accessible to them.”

Welch said that the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge has nearly tripled in size since it began in 2021.

“Thanks to the Healthy Habits grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation, Arkansas 4-H has had the funds and resources to grow this program from 11 teams to 32 teams over the past three years,” Welch said. “It takes a lot of time, funding and resources for county agents to prep, plan and implement nutritional education programs in their communities and clubs.”

Welch said all food not used during the competition was donated to The Shack, a non-profit ministry in Little Rock that provides free hygiene facilities, laundry services and meals for people in need.

The winners were:

Senior Division

First place: Howard County Seniors with Spatulas — Sarah Lamb, Anna Kate McKinnon, Christian Trombley

Second place: Grant County Slice, Slice, Babies — Klaesy Knoefler, Daley Rogers, Dylan Rogers

Third place: Grant County Amazin’ Glazinz — Aubrey Ottens, Kortni Nelson, Acacia Searcy

Junior Division

First place: Craighead County Sautéed and Flambéed — Gus Faulkner, Danny Lesslie, Gabrielle Leslie

Second place: Howard County Food Choppers — Ayden Howard, Abi Webb, Parker Webb

Third place-tie: Greene County Amazing Glaze — Karie Head, Addie Lashley, Millie McKinney and Reesie Tritch, tied with Yell County’s Clover Choppers — Tristan Garrison, Maeleigh Miller, Brooklyn Moulder, Kaitlyn Munroe

Due to a recent rule change, the same Arkansas 4-H senior team cannot compete twice at the 4-H National Food Challenge. Because the Howard County Seniors with Spatulas also competed at the National Food Challenge last year, the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge’s second-place senior team, Grant County’s Slice, Slice, Babies, will instead advance to the national competition on Oct. 3 at the Texas State Fair.

For their winning dish, the Howard County Seniors with Spatulas used the mystery ingredient of bowtie pasta to create a “Southwest Soup” with canned chicken, heavy whipping cream, corn, broccoli, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese.

“Right now in our county, it’s show season, and I show goats,” Christian Trombley, 16, told the judges. “This would be a really good meal for me to eat after exercising them because it has lots of protein, which helps regulate your muscles.”

Sarah Lamb, 17, said her favorite part of competing in the 4-H Food Challenge is meeting new people and getting creative with food. Lamb said she hopes to own her own bakery one day.

“I like working together, especially with these three, because we all get along very well,” said Anna Kate McKinnon, 14. “We like to laugh a lot.”

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.

Howard County team places sixth in National 4-H Food Challenge

By Tracy Courage
U of A System Division of Agriculture

LITTLE ROCK — A team of Arkansas 4-H members celebrated National 4-H Week by competing in the National 4-H Food Challenge finals and returning home with a sixth-place win.

Adelene Westfall, Sarah Lamb, and Christian Trombley— competing as the “Seniors with Spatulas” — competed against 10 other teams from Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming at the competition, held Oct. 4 at the Texas State Fair in Dallas.

YOUNG CHEFS -- A Howard County 4-H team placed 6th in the National 4-H Food Challenge. Photo by Tracy Courage / U of A System Division of Agriculture

The Arkansas youth are members of the Howard County Teen Leader Club and longtime members of Arkansas 4-H. Westfall and Lamb, who attend Nashville High School, were part of the 2021 team that placed fifth at nationals last year. Trombley, a homeschooled student, joined the team this year. To qualify for the national competition, the teens won the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge in August.

“I’m super proud of them,” said Howard County Extension Agent Jean Ince, who coached the team and accompanied them to the competition. “They have all been cooking for a long time and still they learned so much.”

Although they had hoped to win top honors, the trio felt good about their performance.

“Our dish was good, and we did a good presentation,” Lamb said.

“We knew so much more this year than last year,” Westfall added. “We felt really good going into their competition.”

The Food Challenge not only tests participants’ cooking skills, but also their knowledge about nutrition, health and food safety and their ability to effectively communicate as a team. During the competition, the teams had 40 minutes to prepare a dish using the main ingredient — which wasn’t unveiled until the start of the competition.

After plating their dish, teams had five minutes to present their dish to judges and discuss food preparation, safety concerns, serving size information, cost analysis and nutritional information. Judges considered appearance, quality, creativity, effective communication and teamwork when scoring. 

For the past two months, the team has met weekly to practice their skills using different ingredients from the four groups: protein, grains, dairy, fruits and vegetables.

Mystery ingredients

White beans were the star of the preliminary round. The Arkansas team created a soup using the canned beans, chicken broth, shredded chicken, cheese, chives, cumin and salt and garnished with tomato. Judges liked their soup well enough to advance the team to the final round where they were tasked with cooking with fresh mushrooms. The team created a Mediterranean-inspired dish using couscous, mushroom­­­s, feta and vegetables.

“I felt confident coming out of second round because we had worked with couscous and mushrooms before,” Westfall said. “We had previously made a recipe with eggplant and couscous, and when we saw there was couscous available, we swapped the eggplant for mushrooms.”

Division of labor

The teens spent the past few months practicing both their culinary skills and how to work as a team. Each had a defined role. Lamb — who her teammates call the ‘boss lady’ — took the lead in the recipe development and decided the menu with team input.

“My goal is always to have a bright, colorful, good-looking dish,” she said.

Lamb frequently cooks for her family, competes in BBQ competitions and hopes to own a bakery one day.

Trombley — the team’s ‘wingman’ — functioned as the sous chef, chopping and mincing ingredients, prepping the work space and ensuring food safety.

Westfall, a 4-H Ambassador and member of the state Healthy Living team, is considered the team’s scribe. She meticulously recorded the ingredients, proportions, nutritional content, serving size and notes needed for the team’s presentation to judges.

Skills for a lifetime

Healthy living is one of tenets of the 4-H program, which offers programs in nutrition, fitness, substance abuse, safety and social and emotional wellness.

“We strive to equip young people with healthy living knowledge and skills to physically, emotionally, and socially prepare them to meet today's challenges,” said Amanda Welch, a 4-H youth development associate for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Welch coordinates the statewide 4-H Food Challenge.

Last year, Arkansas 4-H applied for and received a Healthy Habits grants from the National 4-H Council and Wal-Mart Foundation.

“Most of the grant money went to counties to use for healthy living programs,” Welch said. “Howard County used grant money to purchase cooking utensils and supplies required for the competition.”

The teens all said they enjoyed the experience. For Trombley, it was because of the “friendship and teamwork.” Lamb said she is more comfortable with public speaking because of the competition, and Westfall, who memorized nutritional value of foods for the competition, said that information will continue to help her.

“I’ve learned so much about our bodies and what they need to function that I never would’ve thought about before this challenge,” Westfall said. “It’s taught me a lot that I can use to improve my health and my family’s.”

4-H is the premier youth development program of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. Programs are offered in every county in Arkansas. To learn more about 4-H, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension.