Vegan Dish Wins National Recipe Contest for Kids

The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, a national kids’ recipe contest which called for nutritious and affordable recipes and offered the grand prize of meeting First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House, was recently held. Nine-year-old Noah Koch, who comes from a primarily vegan household, swept the competition with his Vegan Powerhouse Pesto Pasta. He turned the original dairy-laden recipe cruelty-free, by omitting cheese and adding avocado, tomatoes, walnuts, and white beans, all served on gluten-free pasta. Tonya Steele—the editor in chief of epicurious.com, one of the organizers of the contest—noted that Koch’s dish was “extremely good” and “tasted very fresh.”