Kids are required through the food lunch program to take a lot of different foods, but we’re not always contentious about eating them.”

PHS Principal Joseph Amaral

PORTSMOUTH — More than 900 Portsmouth High School students got a crash course in food waste Friday by sampling some culinary creations not usually found on most school lunch menus.

PHS hosted an inaugural “Waste Warrior” cooking challenge as part of National Stop Food Waste Day. The educational program was an initiative by Chartwells, the company that provides school lunches to local students in kindergarten through grade 12.

“We wanted to stop food waste, and Chartwells had an initiative to do that,” said PHS Principal Joseph Amaral. “Kids are required through the food lunch program to take a lot of different foods, but we’re not always conscientious about eating them. We needed to educate kids that when you take something, you need to use it, pass it along or save it for another day. (Chartwells) came up with this program, and it fit in real nice.”

Barbara Cohen, Chartwells’ East Bay district manager, said the event pitted two Chartwells employees against each other in a friendly culinary throw-down: Steve DaFonseca, executive chef for the East Bay school district, and Jared Becker, Northeast regional executive chef. 

“They each developed a recipe that has very little food waste and basically all vegetables,” she said.

Mr. DaFonseca came up with a buffalo chickpea taco, which used English cucumbers that don’t need to be peeled because their skins are thin and easy to eat. Mr. Becker made French fries from beets and sweet potatoes, the skins of which are nutritious and also don’t need to be removed.

“With the veggies, you leave the peels on so there’s no waste in the environment,” said Mr. DaFonseca, who added Sriracha sauce, Frank’s hot sauce, chili powder and jalapeño pepper to his dish to give it some heat. “So far, the response is positive on both ends. I think it’s going to be a tight race.”

He certainly found a fan in Aidan Wood, a junior at PHS. 

“I had the chickpea wrap. It was amazing. It had the spice and the mediterranean tzatziki — just a great flavor,” he said.

But did it beat the usual fare served in the cafeteria? “Uh, yeah — by like miles,” Aidan said.

Mr. Becker seemed confident in his chances of coming out on top, however. “I’m hearing a lot of great comments today. I don’t know what’s in the ballot box, but I definitely think I’m going to be the strong winner here,” he said.

Winning, however, wasn’t the main goal, he said.

“I’m definitely doing this for the right reason: Kids should love their vegetables,” said Mr. Becker. “Obviously, this is something that can be made at home. It teaches kids about not only eating vegetables with their skins on, but also about healthy eating.”

Sponsoring charity

The event also served as a fund-raiser for either the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The recipient depended on which of the two dishes students selected as being the tastiest — as well as the least wasteful.

“Each chef is sponsoring a charity that the student council here at the school really support. The winner today will receive a $500 check for that particular charity from Compass Group, the parent organization for Chartwells,” said Ms. Cohen.

Mr. Amaral said he hopes Friday’s event will serve as a good jumping-off point for more programs at PHS that discourage food waste.

“I remember when I was (principal) at the middle school. We used to take all the apples and organic materials and re-use them,” he said, noting that students started a compost pile outside and a local pig farmer would come every week to take some away.

He’d like to see something similar started at the high school.

“I think today is just step one of trying to get kids to have more of an understanding of not wasting food and to be  conscientious of the fact that there’s way too much food that gets wasted, and there’s a lot of people in the world who don’t have access to the same food we do. Hopefully, that will drive their decision-making when they become consumers and also here at school,” Mr. Amaral said.