When junior Jarod Siekman entered Sodexo’s “Make It Mindful” contest, an online competition centered around creating a healthy taco, the last thing he expected was to become one of the four finalists.
Jarod Siekman. Photo by Aubrey Bartel
“I saw a poster in Marbeck on one of the napkin holders that said ‘Create your own taco,’ ” Siekman said. “I decided to enter as a joke, and a couple of weeks later they told me I was one of the finalists.”
The “Make It Mindful” contest fits into Sodexo’s Mindful campaign, focused on providing people with healthy foods. According to their website, Sodexo’s approach “focuses on the transparency of ingredients, delicious food, satisfying portions and clarity in message so that making Mindful choices becomes second nature.”
The competition took place entirely online. Contestants were asked to choose 10 ingredients from a list to make a virtual taco, according to Sodexo’s website. They also had to tell the story behind their taco as part of the competition.
The base to Siekman’s taco is a healthy grain tortilla, and it contains chicken, shredded lettuce and red onion. It’s also fruit-based, containing ingredients such as mangos, avocados and fruit salsa. He said the idea for the taco came from his cross-cultural experience—a semester in Guatemala.
“I chose some of the ingredients because of my semester down in Guatemala,” Siekman said. “I would eat the street tacos there, and there would be a lot of fruit, a lot of different choices than you see in America, so I wanted to base my taco off of that.”
So far, Siekman has made it through the first round of judging and now finds himself as one of four finalists in the competition. The first round was based largely on the “potential of [the] recipe to produce good taste, potential to meet Sodexo’s nutrition criteria and potential/feasibility for production and distribution,” along with smaller consideration for “originality and clarity of Entry’s statement.” A panel of different sponsors determined the scores for the first round’s categories.
The second round of the competition is based on the same criteria, but results will be determined by votes from the public. An online poll to choose the finalist will be available Dec. 9 to 21. After voting ends, the finalist with the highest overall score based on the five categories will be announced as the winner.
Winning the competition would get Siekman one year of free lunches with Sodexo. The prize is calculated to be equivalent to $2,500, or $10 per meal. By earning a spot as a top-four finalist, he already won one month of free lunches, or the equivalent of $200. This was given to the finalists as a Sodexo gift card.
Overall, Siekman’s taco has done much better than he expected.
“[I spent] not even 10 minutes [making my taco],” Siekman said. “I just went to the website and went through the process for submitting a taco, it was really easy. I basically just entered this competition as a joke, and it turned out to work.”
