Yum-o! Teams with Alliance for a Healthier Generation to Provide Healthy and Delicious Recipes for School Cafeterias Across the Country

(New York, NY) — Yum-o! and Rachael Ray have teamed up with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to provide nutritious and delicious recipes that are appropriate for school settings. The recipes will be available for free to every school across the country, reaching more than 30 million students. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation is a nonprofit organization founded by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation working to combat childhood obesity.

"Getting students excited about the food they eat in school, and giving them access to flavorful choices made with more fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains, is so important when it comes to teaching them about making healthy food choices," says Rachael. "I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and provide schools nationwide with nutritious recipes that kids will enjoy eating."

Rachael first began to provide recipes to schools in a partnership with the New York City Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood in 2009. The success of that program led to her desire to bring her healthy recipes to schools across the United States. The collaboration with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation is a natural fit, as the Alliance’s Healthy Schools Program is one of the largest school-based childhood obesity programs in the country, supporting more than 12,000 schools in their efforts to create healthier places for students to learn and staff to work.

Taste-tested and approved. A team of food service directors tested each recipe in real school kitchens with real kids in nine school districts across the country, including California, Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Nebraska, North Carolina, Indiana and Texas. The results are recipes that meet school food service operational needs while getting a "thumbs up" from students.

"We are always looking for fun and innovative ways to introduce healthier options to students," says Sal Valenza, food service director at West New York, N.J. who piloted the recipes with his students. "The recipes Rachael Ray, Yum-o! and the Alliance created not only got rave reviews from the students, but they are created in a way that is easy and affordable to make from a school food service perspective."

Check out a video of Rachael’s Cheesy Mac and Trees being served at school!

The eight new recipes meet the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s school nutrition guidelines. The science-based guidelines, which meet or exceed USDA guidelines, focus on increased lean protein, whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low fat and fat-free dairy in addition to reduced total fat, saturated fat and sodium levels. Recipes available to school food service professionals include:

Southwestern Turkey Cobb Salad: Uses USDA turkey roasts and Rachael’s special Yum-o! Southwest Ranch Sauce to create a salad with a taste as big as Texas.

Silly Chili con Fusilli: Five-alarm fun served over fusilli pasta including a "fixin’s bar" that gives students a chance to customize their own meal.

"Orange" You Glad its Glazed Chicken and Noodles: Add some zing to USDA chicken with this new "a-peeling" Orange Glazed Chicken. Serve with chopsticks for added fun.

Additional recipes include: Yakitori Chicken Noodle Bowls, Cheesy Mac and Trees, BBQ Turkey Sloppy Joes, Mexi-Mac and Cheese and Turkey Tacos.

View a sample recipe.

Ready to start cooking? Get all of the recipes, as well as shopping lists, nutritional information and best practices for preparing, introducing and serving the recipes to students. Plus, learn more about what makes these recipes healthy, get the latest information on scratch-cooking in schools and find tips and tricks for how to introduce new healthy recipes to students.

DO try this at home! Yum-o! has also adapted the recipes for you to try at home so that kids and their families can taste the possibilities!

Looking for more resources to serve healthier school meals? The Alliance for a Healthier Generation has a variety of free, money-saving resources and technical tools that enable food service staff to find healthier products, save money and simplify their bidding process.

Check out President Bill Clinton and Rachael introducing Healthy School Meals on the Rachael Ray show!

About the Alliance for a Healthier Generation
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation works to address one of the nation’s leading public health threats – childhood obesity. The goal of the Alliance is to reduce the nationwide prevalence of childhood obesity by 2015, and to empower kids to make healthy lifestyle choices. Founded in 2005 by the American Heart Association and William J. Clinton Foundation, the Alliance works to positively affect the places that can make a difference to a child’s health: homes, schools, doctor’s offices and communities. To learn more about the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, visit www.HealthierGeneration.org.

About Rachael Ray
Rachael Ray is best known as the host of the hit syndicated Emmy Award winning daytime television show, Rachael Ray, produced by CBS Television Distribution in association with Harpo Productions, Scripps Networks and Watch Entertainment. Rachael’s warmth, energy, and boundless curiosity also reaches scores of fans through her popular Food Network shows, bestselling cookbooks, her own
line of cookware created by Meyer, knives by Furitechnics, signature food ingredients by Colavita and lifestyle magazine Every Day with Rachael Ray. In 2007, Rachael launched the Yum-o! organization, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking. In 2008 she partnered with Ainsworth Pet Nutrition to create a line of pet food, of which all her proceeds are donated to organizations that help animals in need. For more information, visit www.rachaelray.com.

About the Yum-o! Organization
Yum-o!® is Rachael Ray’s nonprofit organization that empowers kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking by teaching families to cook, feeding hungry kids and funding cooking education and scholarships. By providing the tools to create easy, affordable and delicious meals, Yum-o! is changing the way America eats. For more information about the Yum-o! organization, visit www.yum-o.org.

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For more information, contact:

Alliance for a Healthier Generation
Megan McIntyre
664-775-9151
[email protected]

Yum-o!/Rachael Ray
Charlie Dougiello
646-340-1766
[email protected]

Photo credit: David Steele