Program balances taste, nutrition

Local student chefs are getting a taste of how nutrition soon may be as important as taste in their kitchen creations.

Through a new class at the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy at Spokane Community College, students are being challenged to look at the nutritional qualities of the dishes they’re preparing.

Training soon-to-be chefs to think about nutrition is a sort of pre-emptive strike against what many believe will be mandates on restaurants as government health officials grapple with America’s obesity problem.

“It’s coming, we just don’t know what form,” says registered dietitian Patty Seebeck, who teaches the final-quarter nutrition refresher course at SCC. Seebeck says SCC is doing more on the nutrition front than any other culinary program in the country. To become a certified chef, the American Culinary Federation requires only a single basic nutrition class.

Seebeck received grant money from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office to explore solutions to America’s obesity epidemic. She says she’s using most of her time to developing the extra nutrition emphasis at the INWCA and the rest of her time to a collaborative online effort to help professional chefs analyze the nutrition in their recipes.

“I’ve really become a face in their lives,” Seebeck says of the students whom she taught basic nutrition to in their first quarter and who are now learning to apply nutrition in their craft. “I hang out in the kitchen a lot. Even when I don’t stop (to talk), they know, ‘There’s the nutrition lady.’ “

She works with student chefs to run nutrition analyses on their recipes and poses hypothetical situations such as, “How would you accommodate a diner who has diabetes?” In the kitchen at Orlando’s, SCC’s student-run restaurant, she’ll ask questions about why they chose certain ingredients and whether there are heart-healthier alternatives.

“I tell them, ‘I’m not a cop. I’m not grading you. This isn’t about being right or wrong. I’m here so you think about nutrition and keep thinking about nutrition,’ ” she says.

Several students say that her presence has helped them consider how many eggs and how much cream they’re using in their recipes and to think about alternatives.

Student Anne Bauer says the refresher course has been an eye opener. In one experiment, students were told to look at the first three ingredients of common products, such as ketchup. “Corn syrup is repeated in a lot of them,” Bauer said, adding that she’s learning to see the hidden sugars.

Bauer, whose emphasize is baking and desserts, says she’s learning to make healthier desserts that are still full of flavor. “It’s a challenge to be creative and find something that’s as visually attractive as something coated in chocolate,” she said.

A recent business meeting at Orlando’s gave student chefs the perfect opportunity to tackle that challenge. One guest was unable to have any milk products. For a dessert they created a sorbet trio served in phyllo cups sprinkled with Splenda Blend and cinnamon and served with a fresh fruit coulis sauce. “It was very pretty,” Bauer said. “(The man) was very happy we could be accommodating.”

Seebeck says she’s impressed with how her first crop of students are taking her advice.

“These young guys are starting to make noises,” she says. “They’re taking it on themselves and applying it in the marketplace. They want to be challenged nutrition-wise.”

One example, she says, is that they are now consistently making entrees with less than 500 calories and even have created three-course lunches at Orlando’s that have less than 1,000 calories.

Mike Caruso who worked the vegetarian and heart-healthy stations at Orlando’s, said he was sometimes surprised when Seebeck ran the nutrition numbers on his recipes. He recalled one that met the required 3 ounces of protein and 5 ounces of carbohydrate, but, “It was like 2,000 calories,” he says.

Caruso, like many of the student chefs Seebeck’s been working with, says he understands that nutrition should be as important as taste in the foods he’ll prepare in his career.

“It used to be you couldn’t trust a thin chef, now it might be you can’t trust a fat one,” he joked.