At Brighter Bites, our mission is to create communities of health through fresh food. One way we do this is by providing our families with healthy, kid-friendly, and parent-approved recipes full of fresh fruits and vegetables. Here is an inside peek into how we create our recipes.
Appealing to our Audience
In order to create recipes that will support communities of fresh food, it is essential that we have a firm foundation and understanding of what type of dishes our Brighter Bites families are looking for. This includes recipes that are familiar to kids and applicable to the cultures we serve. The recipes must also be friendly on the budget, easy to prepare, and designed with ingredients that our families will recognize. With this foundation, we strive to make recipes that are relatable and yet challenge our families to try something a little new. We foster the idea that small steps eventually lead to big changes, and that swapping in a few healthier ingredients in a familiar recipe will result in one well-received healthy dish and eventually plates, meals, and diets full of healthier choices.
Step One: Writing the Recipe
The first step in our recipe-creating process is writing the recipe. We work to fill each kid-friendly recipe with plenty of fruits and veggies, healthy fats, and little to no sodium or sugar. We also make sure each recipe is budget friendly, easy to prepare, and made with ingredients that our families can easily access. Lastly, we look to have a library of recipes that cover a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, a range of meal types, and a variety of cultures.
Step Two: Testing the Recipe
Once we’ve created a recipe that meets all of our criteria (see step one), we start testing it out in the kitchen. During this process, we give ourselves a little wiggle room in order to have the flexibility to add more or less of our ingredients. We start with adding maybe a little less of one ingredient and a little more of another and add and taste as we go until we’ve found the perfect proportions. During this step, we weigh the ingredients as we add them in order to cost out the recipes and provide our families with an “average cost per recipe”. This is done by simply multiplying the cost per ounce of the ingredient times the actual weight of the ingredient.
Step Three: Finalizing the Recipe
Once we’re happy with our recipe, it’s time for a staff taste testing. If our staff approves the dish, we then retest the recipe in a focus group with Brighter Bites mothers and children. Once everyone loves the final product, we load the recipe into our online recipe bank and distribute hard copies at Brighter Bites produce distributions.
All of our recipes are carefully thought out, made with care and love, and approved by dieticians, kids, and parents. Our goal with our recipes is to provide Brighter Bites families with the inspiration, knowledge, and tools to move forward in a healthier life. Providing healthy recipes to our families is just one way we can facilitate behavior change and build on our idea that “the better we nourish, the brighter we flourish.”
Check out our recipe bank for healthy mealtime inspiration!
