From garden to table, MAGGI inspires Filipinos to love vegetables, especially school-aged kids who need the right amount of nutrients to maintain healthy development.
According to a report by UNICEF, Filipino children are eating fewer fruits and vegetables. This is why, more than ever, we need to teach good habits to schoolchildren in schools and our own households.
Cooking aid brand MAGGI is doing this first by inspiring Filipinos to cook healthy, affordable meals without compromising taste through their Sarap Sustansya advocacy and second by promoting food security and sustainability through urban agriculture.
With the goal of motivating Filipinos to eat healthier meals and embrace the notion of sustainable food, MAGGI tapped Vanjo Merano, the man behind the wildly-popular YouTube channel Panlasang Pinoy, to champion its Sarap Sustansya advocacy. The partnership allows Merano to connect with the brand’s community of homecooks and help them overcome their daily challenges in giving their families meals that nourish and give joy despite modest budgets.
On his partnership with MAGGI, Vanjo said it was a meaningful connection that resulted in a perfect role for Panlasang Pinoy. “Our stars aligned. Our goal is the same: to promote nutritious and delicious food here in the Philippines,” Merano said in a sit-down interview.
The Sarap Sustansya advocacy is a timely response to trends in the eating habits of Filipino children, 74 percent of whom eat less than three portions of vegetables per day, according to a recent study by the World Health Organization. As lead advocate, Vanjo is taking full advantage of the opportunity to increase understanding and knowledge on nutrition among the youth through the Sarap Sustansya Cook Off, held in partnership with Nestlé Wellness Campus and the Department of Education.
Feeding the future
We met Merano during his visit at Taguig Integrated School, a winning participant of the MAGGI Sarap Sustansya Cook-Off 2023-2024, for a day of cooking and gardening to further instill the habit of eating vegetables among public schoolkids.
He was welcomed warmly by the students, who joined him in harvesting vegetables such as eggplant and malunggay from the school’s very own Gulayan sa Paaralan. These freshly harvested ingredients were then used in a live cooking demo, during which Merano taught the students how to make simple yet innovative vegetable-based dishes that they all relished.
Merano surprised the students by cooking the vegetables in new ways (we’ve never had pumpkin soup with malunggay pesto before, nor pinakbet made into empanada or roasted eggplant into a dip), and assisted the students in creating nutritious and delicious dishes using kitchen staples like the brand’s chicken broth cubes and all-in-one seasoning.
By adding a unique twist and interesting flavors to everyday dishes with vegetables, Merano helps unlock both enjoyment and nutrition, increasing the likelihood of children eating their greens.
This farm-to-fork approach to making meals can also inspire kids to grow their own vegetables at home, and make them more confident in adding more vegetable varieties into their daily diet.
“I want to be part of the solution that will improve access to healthy food that the whole family will love,” he said. “Sharing recipes that contain more plant-based ingredients and raising awareness on the benefits of a garden-to-table lifestyle blends perfectly with what I wanted to do for Panlasang Pinoy.”
The MAGGI Sarap Sustansya advocacy aims to help Filipinos to have healthier, more productive lives by improving access to fresh ingredients they can use to make tasty and healthy meals every day.