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Two celebs take on three ingredients for one cause

Diana Steele is a familiar face to many readers. The registered dietician has been a regular on Global TV’s noon news hour for the past 14 years.
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Diana Steele is a familiar face to many readers.

The registered dietician has been a regular on Global TV’s noon news hour for the past 14 years.

Ambleside born and raised, Steele is also an author, professional speaker, and owner of Eating for Energy, a Vancouver-based nutrition consulting company.

Teaching and talking about nutrition is both a passion and profession, and something she is sharing with students in a unique event this week at the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.

Steele
Diana Steele. photo supplied

A group of middle-school kids ages 11 to 13 are meeting with Steele and Fairmont Vancouver’s executive chef Cameron Ballendine to talk about hunger in the community and the importance of a nutritious diet.

Steele says her focus will be on talking to the kids about the importance of developing healthy eating habits at a young age, which they can then take with them into adulthood.

The event follows on the heels of the release of an online cookbook she contributed to called Out of the Box: Healthy Family Pasta Meals on a Budget. The book features 15 recipes jointly designed by nutritionists and chefs across the country. Each of the recipes can be made for $15 and provide a meal for a family of four.

For her part, Steele was tasked with providing three ingredients, which were then combined into a unique dish by Ballendine. Steele says she chose the ingredients based on what she thought might be easy-to-find food staples, especially in a food bank: chickpeas, pumpkin puree, and cherry tomatoes.

Although not a very common combo of flavours, Ballendine added coconut and salmon to create Baked Coconut Salmon Macaroni.

Steele was impressed when she tried the final product, particularly with Ballendine’s choice to bake the chickpeas and crumble them as a topping rather than mixing them in whole. The dish is a healthy version of macaroni and cheese, she notes.

Although Ballendine’s final product is a bit of a fancier approach than some might take, Steele says the recipe can be made as a straight-forward mix rather than baking chickpeas to crumble on top and incorporating baked coconut.

The purpose of the project is to raise awareness that all families, including families without food security, require healthy meals, explains Steele. Those meals should focus on all food groups, she notes.

The cookbook is available for free online at catelli.ca, and Catelli Foods will donate a serving of pasta to Canada’s food banks with every download or share of the cookbook or its recipes. Students attending this week’s event in Vancouver will also help deliver 10,800 boxes of pasta to the food bank.