This spring talented high school and middle school students will gather in Vermont to compete in the fourth annual Junior Iron Chef competition.  Students will create and prepare their own dishes to be presented to a panel of judges who critique the recipes based on creativity, greatest number and use of local ingredients.  The winning dishes are served to Vermont's legislatures.

The purpose of this competition is to get students thinking about nutrition and where food in their communities comes from.  One of the requirements of the competition is the dishes must be replicable by school cafeteria staff so they are dishes that could possibly be served as a healthy option during school lunch.

Participants are encouraged to support their community by using seasonal produce grown by local farmers.  The competition is meant to increase awareness of produce available locally and proceeds from the event will go to Farm-to-School initiatives.  Farm-to-School projects connect schools to local farms.  These projects aim to encourage healthy living by teaching students about nutrition and by putting healthy local food options in cafeterias.  The Farm-to-School initiatives also give students the opportunity to support local farmers and learn about agriculture.

According to LocalHarvest.org,  it is more important than ever to start learning about local food options and supporting small farmers in your community. 

"Most produce in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taking into account only US grown products! Those distances are substantially longer when we take into consideration produce imported from Mexico, Asia, Canada, South America, and other places."

Buying local ensures the quality and freshness of your produce and also helps to stimulate the local economy and support your community.  Buying organic foods, meat and produce that has not been treated with unnatural chemicals or hormones, is also generally a healthier option for you and limits the amount of toxins released into the environment by some of the potentially harmful chemicals used in large farming operations. 

If you're interested in joining the Junior Iron Chef competition, they are now accepting applications for teams of students from 6^th to 12^th grade.  All you have to do is find an adult supervisor who will be there during the competition, come up with a recipe and visit the application section of the Junior Iron Chef website for more instructions on how to officially register for the competition.  Also, you should check out this video of last years competition.

They are also looking for volunteers to help out with the competition so if you are not the best cook but still want to get involved all you have to do is go to the volunteering page on their website and sign up.  Volunteers will help with registration, set up, and clean up and will have fee admission to the event.

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