SHARON SPRINGS, N.Y. — Offering school-age children a hands-on learning opportunity to participate in the pasture to plate experience is the aim for the NY Beef Checkoff (NYBC) and New York Agriculture in the Classroom (NYAITC) partnership. The Top Cut: A Beef Contest allows students to participate in the development, marketing, and serving of a nutritious beef dish to their peers. The entire experience offers an opportunity for students to engage while learning new skills and exploring the beef lifecycle. This year’s theme is “Cafeteria Takeover” students worked as a group to develop a marketing and nutrition plan for a beef-centric product or recipe that could be served in their school cafeteria. Students were encouraged to work with their school’s foodservice team in this cross-curricular challenge. The goal was for students to learn the process of procuring, preparing, and providing balanced school lunches to students in school that could also be replicated at home.
On November 17th, Sharon Springs CSD capitalized on the contest by involving not only the whole school but reached out to the New York Beef Council and NY Agriculture in the Classroom to assist in the promotion of one of their beef recipes served in the cafeteria. Sharon Springs featured a “Shephard’s Pie Beef Bowl” “The Sparta Bowl” during lunch. Students involved with the project created the recipe cooked the recipe, and served it to hungry students throughout lunch. Beef Man made a special appearance to help serve up some beef bowls and give away prizes to students who ordered the beef bowl.
Ann Allen, Sharon Springs Agriculture Teacher and FFA Advisor commented about the Top Cut’s Contest: “Top Cuts allows us to talk about more than just the meat, it allows us to use math, apply science and food safety skills that can be shared at home. “ Allen went on to say, “Students need hands-on activities to associate it with real-world things, not a lot of students get an opportunity to cook, not a lot of them know where their food comes from even though we live in a rural area, and to see the connection between things and support the local activity is great!”
Other school foodservice beef recipes can be found here: at https://www.nybeef.org/education/school-foodservice/recipes-for-lunch-programs . Stay tuned to see what other beef recipes were created by students during this contest! Winners will be announced before the holiday break!
To find out more about the Top Cuts program visit https://newyork.agclassroom.org/programs/topcut/
To learn more about New York Beef Council and Beef Checkoff-funded activities happening in New York visit www.nybeef.org
–New York Beef Council