Worksite Wellness Spotlight: Houston Food Bank

Written by

Staff leaderboard for VegOut! at Houston Food Bank
Staff leaderboard for VegOut! at Houston Food Bank

We are so proud of our enduring partnership with the Houston Food Bank. This dynamic organization feeds 800,000 hungry people each year by distributing food through nearly 600 hunger relief agencies in 18 southeast Texas counties. We share a common goal of nourishing our community and teaching the basics of smart food choices.  No wonder, we got such a huge kick when the folks at the Houston Food Bank enthusiastically joined in our 2015 VegOut! Challenge, encouraging not just their staff, but their volunteers and all their clients to participate, too. While we gear up for VegOut! 2016 at Houston Food Bank, read more about how we knocked it out of the park last year. 
Continue reading…

Worksite Wellness Spotlight: Luby’s

Written by

LUBYS VEGWe think Worksite Wellness programs are fantastic, because they cultivate peer support and collaboration for building healthier habits. Here’s another great example of VegOut! making a positive impact in the workplace. Now, this particular workplace happens to be an iconic Texas restaurant chain — Luby’s — where scores of people come in their doors and proceed to make food choices as they slide their tray along the stainless steel rails of the serving line.

We are proud to have Luby’s as a sponsor of Recipe for Success for the past 2 years, and as a VegOut! sponsor for 2015. “Luby’s Fuddruckers Restaurants, LLC got started as an Angel Affiliate and help create a vegetable garden for Lovett Elementary,” says Chisolm Tate, Human Resources Manager for Luby’s. “During the set-up for the garden, Molly Kaminski with Recipe for Success suggested that I VegOut! I took it a step further and in 2014: a team of 24 employees, including myself, took the challenge. We purchased a juicer and juiced a lot of the veggies — it was a fun activity and built a healthier team.” Continue reading…

VegOut! Fortifying Fort Bend Families

Written by

Heritage Rose posterVegOut! 2015 has engaged schools across the Houston area and beyond. We love the creativity and enthusiasm that our Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ instructors, other teachers, principals and volunteers are channeling into this year’s VegOut! Challenge. Here’s a taste of the VegOut! fun blooming at Heritage Rose Elementary in Fort Bend ISD.

Viviana Ayala, the school’s Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ instructor, collaborated with Principal Shequelle Foster-Gims to open up the VegOut! Challenge the entire school. Ayala also created a clever, competition-inducing poster and placed it prominently in the cafeteria. “The poster reads: ‘Veg Out! Challenge! / The race is on … who will win?’,” says Ayala. “Below this is a graph on the left side with the grades from pre-k to 5th grade. As the percentage of kids per grade complete the 7-veggie mark each week that grade will get closer to the finish line. In essence it’s a race competition, which gives everyone a visual motivation to try more veggies.”

Both Principal Gims and Assistant Principal Nancy Sanchez offered their praise of Ayala’s motivational poster saying: “We love your idea of the VegOut! graph Competition.” Continue reading…

Celebrate National Paella Day: Enter Our Recipe Contest

Written by

PaellaPaella is the ultimate party dish. With its infinite ingredient possibilities, Recipe for Success and Mahatma Rice are looking for the best veggie centric paella recipe. We will notify winners by email and announce the winning recipes online and at our Veggie Riot Wrap Up on April 18. Prizes include Mahatma Rice gift basket including a Rice Cooker for 1st, 1 2nd & 3rd place recipes plus $100 cash to the First Place Winner. Enter your original recipe with a photo by April 8, 2015. You must be registered to VegOut! to win. Entries will be judged for the creative use of the most vegetables, appearance, originality, flavor and technique. Read the full rules and directions to enter HERE.

It’s not too late to VegOut! Register online now and get started!

Written by

Laura Nelson & Leisa Holland-NelsonIt only takes a few days and a few strategic meals to score 30 veggies. Want proof? Just look at Veg Out! Superstar Leisa Holland-Nelson who completed her 30-vegetable tally in just 2 days!

On the first day Leisa Holland-Nelson ate a salad for lunch that contained 14 vegetables – kale, bok choy, spinach, romaine, tomato, celery, carrots, mushrooms, artichokes, edamame, chickpeas, radish, Brussels sprouts and cucumber. “I eat this salad almost every day,” says Holland-Nelson, who owns a web and mobile development company.

“Sometimes I just run by the grocery store and put together all these veggies from the salad bar.” She says at-home meals such as a pasta dinner made with three types of squash and a steamed veggie combo containing broccoli, cauliflower and beets also helped her tackle the Veg Out! Challenge quickly. Your take away: Do a major a salad bar sweep and look for recipes or restaurant menu items that contain several vegetables on one plate! Continue reading…