Thank goodness the weekend has finally arrived! I don’t know about you, but this past week, for me, has been rough. And by “rough”, I mean 4 hours of shut-eye each night on average, caffeine intake ATC (around-the-clock… you’ll learn a lot of pharmacy abbreviations from reading my posts!), and snacking on unhealthy amounts of processed junk food to accompany marathon studying.

It’s sad because that last part about unhealthy snacking is something that I’ve been trying to combat for a long time. It’s not just snacking smart, but also maintaining a nutritious, well balanced diet in general that I care about and continually strive for. But it’s especially hard for college and graduate students to eat healthy all the time. Let’s face it… who has time to cook a decent meal (i.e. not Kraft Mac&Cheese or Maruchan Instant Ramen), let alone a nutritious one, when you’re a full time student with a part time job and involvement in various student organizations?

Kudos to those who can do it all and more… y’all are my heroes! But for the rest of us, it’s all about improving our time management and learning the right tips and tricks to whip up meals that won’t increase our risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease down the road, but will keep us vibrant, energized, and ready to conquer the next round of exams (and whatever else life throws at us)!

As you can probably tell, nutrition is something I care about very much. And that’s why, as Shady Grove Liaison for the Student Section of the Maryland Public Health Association (SMdPHA), I decided to partner up with Students Engaged in Public Health (SEIPH) and the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) Operation Diabetes to organize a healthy cooking competition called So You Think You Can Cook (Healthy!).

Students, staff, and faculty at USG are all invited to compete! Competitors will choose a healthy dish they’re proud of, prepare it at home, and bring it to campus for our food tasting and judging event. Anyone attending (first come, first serve!) will have a chance to sample each dish and rate it based on taste. Each dish will also be assigned a score based on nutritional recommendations by the USDA. A total score taking into account both taste and nutrition will then be determined.

There are awesome prizes to be won including a Fitbit Alta, a professional personal training session, a Trader Joe’s gift bag containing a variety of specialty food items, and a bluetooth body fat scale! In addition, all contestants and their recipes will be featured in an electronic cookbook. If you think you have what it takes to become USG’s Favorite Healthy Cook, enter HERE to compete! Submissions are due by 11 PM this Monday 10/10.

If cooking competitions aren’t your thing, I hope to still see you at the food tasting and judging event on Tuesday 10/25 between 12:30 and 1:30 PM. Healthy can still mean tasty… and our cheftestants are ready to prove it. Get ready for a little (healthy) competition! Pun intended.