The girls have been preparing for the 4-H Food Show for a few weeks. One of the tools we used to prepare was Nutrition 101: Choose Life! which we graciously received as a review product, and are still working our way through. It's such an awesome curriculum; you can read about it here .

We learned a lot by participating in the food show, namely that the judges don't even taste the food until after judging! They judge strictly on the 4-Her's knowledge and presentation. The girls were sent packets of info containing the food pyramid, vitamin and mineral facts, food servings (which we had already gone over in our Nutrition 101 study),  along with questions the judges would ask.

The girls awoke early Saturday morning to finish preparing their recipes. Morgan chose Potato Salad- Hold the Mayo! which is a recipe she found in the Nutrition 101 study. It uses flaxseed oil, walnut oil and we added some chopped walnuts after trying out the recipe, and using chopped walnuts instead of walnut oil that we didn't have. We eventually made a trip to Sun Harvest where we picked up the necessary ingredients for the final product to take to the food show, but kept the chopped walnuts in there. Morgan prepared the recipe all by herself, and garnished it in a pretty dish, since presentation was part of the points. Here's Morgan at her table with her dish:

Taylor chose to make Healthy Chocolate Trail mix, with help from Grandma. We had trouble in the end finding all the necessary ingredients after the intial batch. We had used a brand of organic cocoa granola we had trouble finding again, but finally found an appropriate alternate at Sun Harvest (health food store in Corpus). We also found that all of the cocoa covered almonds were sold out, but ended up being able to collect enough out of the batch we had already made for the final product.

They had both done extensive study on the ingredients they chose- the health benefits, vitamin and mineral content, etc. Taylor focused on no high fructose corn syrup, and the organic content, as well as the dark chocolate cocoa powder benefits.Morgan focused on the benefits of flax and walnut oils- omega 6's and 3's, and no partially hydrogenated fats.  They both rehearsed their questions extensively and all the facts surrounding the nutritional content of their ingredients.

Here's Taylor with her dish at her table- her trail mix is in a pretty ceramic leaf bowl (kind of behind the flowers) and looked really pretty:

The theme of the food show was "Discover the Treasure of Flavors", and they had great decorations, including pirates, parrots, and coins/jewels.

Morgan won a blue ribbon and Alternate to District in her category.

Tayt won a blue ribbon; there were six entries in her category!

Here's the group picture:

After the judging, the kids were able to sample all of the foods, then after they got plates the adults and guests were able to sample food too. It was all really yummy!

The girls had a great time and look forward to our nutrition study time every week!