Students in the Career & Technical Institute’s (CTI) Security & Law classes created healthy meal plans that were prepared by students in Chef Instructor Amanda Scoca’s Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management morning class after going through officer wellness training and a nutrition unit. Both are mandated by New York State’s Department of Criminal Justice Services.
Security and Law Teacher Steve Price noted that officers’ wellness and proper nutrition are essential in law enforcement due to long shifts and the high stress that comes with the job. After completing the unit and passing their exams, students designed a healthy meal they would want during a shift, which culinary students cooked and served to them.
Second-year Security student Hayden Jimenez Evangelisto noted that officers who eat a healthy diet look and perform better on the job, adding that while this is crucial, it is often overlooked. “Meal plans are very important for the athletic factor of our job because as an officer, you have to be fit,” he said. “You don’t exactly know what is going to happen on each call.”
Protein-heavy foods with less sugar and salt featured prominently on Hayden Jimenez Evangelisto’s menu. His brother Cristiano is a second-year culinary student and anticipated a delicious breakfast with plenty of vegetables and some carbs, adding that he loves when two CTI programs come together for an assignment. “My brother is a good cook, so I expect a lot from him,” Hayden Jimenez Evangelisto said. “It’s just really fun to interact with the other classes.”
Cristiano Jimenez Evangelisto cracked several eggs and sliced tomatoes for the breakfast that included omelets, avocado toast and chicken burritos with spicy pico de gallo, to name a few. He has brought his brother leftover food he prepared in class before and cooked for Security & Law students last year, so this assignment proved easy.
“Every day that we cook something and bring something home, I have food on the bus and he’s always tired from his runs, so I’m always like, ‘You want half of my food?’” Cristiano Jimenez Evangelisto said of his brother. “I would like to work on his meal in particular … he better say he likes it, if not he’s got to give me 20 pushups.”
Second year culinary student Amelia Hayde said she was excited to take on this new challenge and felt no nerves as the event approached. “Whether we’re cooking for ourselves or for other people, it should all be the same,” Hayde said. “It’s important to take pride in everything you make.”
Security students were blown away when their meal was set down in front of them and exclaimed how fancy it all seemed.
“We eat with our eyes first, what we served was eggs, toast and bacon,” Scoca said. “We plated it in a way to make it special.”
After an intense window of preparation and service to the security students, the culinary students got to try their creations and all felt the joy of their success.
