From my blog post on the Epicurious epi-log blog:

Forty-eight hours ago, my dream came true. What was that dream? To inspire, educate, and empower kids to eat healthfully, to cook, to notice what goes into their bodies, to be the best they can be. This is the genesis of the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge and Kids’ State Dinner.

I’ve had the good fortune to help promote Let’s Move since 2010, when someone from the White House called me to say: “Hey, we know you wrote a book on healthy eating, and that Epicurious likes to promote the topic. Why don’t we work together?” In early 2011, myself and two colleagues, Laura Miller and Maurie Perl, were thinking of ways to inspire kids to eat healthy and reinforce the Let’s Move initiative, when we came up with the idea of having a kid’s recipe contest with the prize being a priceless Kids’ State Dinner at the White House. I mentioned it to the First Lady’s office and lo and behold, we got a call several months later that Mrs. Obama would love to do this. Months of work from teams of people–from the First Lady’s office and the White House Digital Office, the U.S.D.A., and Department of Education, along with our always hard-working team at Epicurious–resulted in 54 winners flying on Delta Sunday with a parent or guardian to Washington D.C. (thank you, Delta!). We stayed at the beautiful Westin Georgetown (thank you, Westin!); had a private tour of Julia Child’s kitchen from the brilliant curators at the National Museum of American History (thank you Paula, Nanci, Keith, and Valeska!); enjoyed a healthy pizza party; and the next morning boarded buses for a sightseeing tour before arriving at the White House.

As befitting any state dinner, we were announced, one by one, walking past an enormous phalanx of press. Many of the kids were interviewed (and indeed, have now become local celebrities), and handled it like pros. We proceeded up to the Grand Foyer (see above), where there were spectacular arrangements made from raspberries, sugar snap peas, and radishes, as well as healthy drinks. A balloonist made the kids imaginative hats before all the kids lined up to each have their photo taken with the First Lady.

The winners headed into the grand East Room, which had been transformed into a kid-friendly dining room. The menu was comprised of a few of the winning recipes. And then it began…the First Lady was announced, followed by myself, and 12-year old Marshall Reid, coauthor of Portion Size Me. You can see me here (below), ready to begin my remarks, and fully soaking in the moment. I began, nervous at first, as not only was I addressing the First Lady of the United States, but also an enormous crew of television cameras. (The event was covered by more than a thousand news outlets.) I will publish my speech on Gourmet Live’s blog on Friday at noon, but I spoke from the heart. I then introduced the amazing Marshall, who moved us all when he talked about being bullied. Mrs. Obama followed up with an inspirational off-the-cuff speech. Dinner was served, and myself and four other families were lucky enough to be seated with Mrs. Obama. As we talked about things big and small, the President crashed the party, eliciting excited screams. He congratulated the winners and stayed to shake everyone’s hand. It was such an extraordinary honor and a real surprise!

It seems a blur after that: Big Time Rush performed for their many enthusiastic fans, and then we all headed out to the Kitchen Garden with White House Assistant Chef, Sam Kass, who showed us the tomatoes, squash, and beans growing on the far end of the South Lawn. White House pastry chef Bill Yosses gave the kids honey from the White House beehive, and we all exited the gates.

It was such an amazing honor to be there, and to bring these very deserving families with us. I hope the message of eating healthy, so you can be at your peak for yourself, for your family, and for your country, will continue to ripple out in ever widening circles. Meantime, we will soon be posting video and photos of the entire day on Epicurious, but right now you can download a free copy of the winning recipes at the recipe contest site. Our huge thanks to everyone involved in making this happen, especially Mrs. Obama.

Watch the White House Kids’ State Dinner video that so beautifully captures this extraordinary day.

Meatless Mondays is one such organization that encourages eating meat-free at least one day a week. I would take that a lot further and encourage eating meat only once a week and legumes, soy, and other high protein healthy foods six days a week. It will only help the health of your family, and that of the planet.

“The former vice presidential nominee told conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham last month that “the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat.”

Palin also hand-delivered cookies to a Pennsylvania school last month before delivering a speech there, saying: “Who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents? It should be the parents.”‘

Yes, parents should have the ultimate control over their children’s eating habits. And yes, we love us a s’mores. But parents first have to know how to eat a healthy diet and teach it to their kids; plus, kids consume much of their daily diet away from their parents; and, everyone, including Tracey and I, need to be reminded about moderation. So, enjoy a s’mores. Have two with your kids. But don’t follow that up with hot chocolate unless you are Sarah Palin, and have time to take a long hike in the Alaskan woods.

Our children will be in even more debt as the rise of obesity continues in this generation, with its attendant health problems, and they will be footing the bill for even greater health-care costs. But at the end of the day, this issue shouldn’t come down to money, or whether the federal government is telling you what to eat. It should come down to us all agreeing that feeding our kids the best, healthiest food we can will only lead to a stronger, smarter generation to lead this country in the future. What do you think about the bill? Is it creating a Nanny State or not?

–Tanya

–Tanya

–Tanya

1) Hydrate properly: Instead of drinking water, refuel with a sports drink like Gatorade or Powerade. If you’re exercising for hours and just drinking water, you are diluting your body fluids and not replacing your electrolyte balance. So, I mixed the kids’ water with a healthy dose of a sports drinks and then served them up at a big glass of pure Gatorade at the end of every day.

2) Eat a diet rich in complex carbs: Pasta, rice, bread and other carbs should make up roughly half of your kid’s daily intake when he or she is exercising a lot because carbs constantly refuel the body. The remainder of the diet should be protein and lots of fibrous, vitamin-rich produce.

3) Have three meals a day plus snacks: Parsonage recommends eating meals two hours before a big day of playing sports and then topping it up with snacks 20 minutes before actual play.

4) Only eat healthy snacks. Bananas, granola bars, an apple, these are perfect snacks for kids to eat during their day of sports. Sugary snacks will only spike their blood sugar up and then bring it rocketing back down, resulting in fatigue and loss of focus.

–Tanya

It’s ridiculous that it’s verboten to sell someone’s homemade brownies or cookies because we can’t decipher the exact calorie count or whether it was made with peanut oil, but selling items like Doritos or Oreo’s are fine. Effectively we are reinforcing to our kids that chemically enhanced fake foods are safer to eat than homemade ones, which are at least made with real ingredients. The simple answer is to sell muffins, cookies, brownies, and quick breads that have less sugar and more whole-wheat flour than the traditional recipes or manufactured versions. Check out our dessert chapter in Real Food for Healthy Kids, or some of the recipes here for healthy options.

–Tanya