We’re Cooking Up Something New!

Most people like to try a new dish, especially if it contains some of their favorite ingredients. Perhaps we enjoy trying new foods for the adventure of it, or perhaps it’s just because it’s something new and different. We at FtH have been known to try a new dish or two ourselves.

When we started packing food almost seven years ago, we produced a meal packet using a recipe we encountered in Haiti. It was a vitamin-enhanced rice and soy meal, which was nutritious and inexpensive to produce. We started with that meal formula because it was familiar. In 2013 we ventured out and tried something new—vitamin-enhanced rice and pinto beans. We chose this meal in response to God opening more doors for our food to be circulated in the United States. The rice and pinto bean formula was more palatable to our tastes here in America.

And now, we are excited to announce that we are putting the finishing touches on the production process for a new meal formula! We’re calling it Chicken Pasta.

If rice is the most popular food in the entire world, our experience has shown us that, at least among children, pasta comes in a close second. So this new meal packet is based on elbow pasta. It still has the vitamin and dehydrated vegetable ingredients found in the other two meal packets we produce. The fourth ingredient (and primary protein source) is chicken-flavored soy. When these soy nuggets are fully cooked, several of our taste-testers have been convinced that they were real chunks of chicken.

We spent much time researching and experimenting to find a new formula that we think will be a hit around the world. We have conducted multiple taste tests among audiences here in America who have diverse cultural preferences when it comes to cuisine. The results surprised us somewhat. Most of our taste-testers preferred the Chicken Pasta Meal over our Beans and Rice Meal.

FtH Chicken Pasta contains four ingredients. From left to right: chicken-flavored soy, dehydrated veggies, vita mix, and elbow pasta.

At this point, we plan on sharing the Chicken Pasta Meal primarily with hungry Americans. But we are also intending to send small quantities to our international destinations to get feedback from the children we help through various feeding programs. We suspect many of them will appreciate an alternative dish to Beans and Rice!

Since our meals must be securely packed for shipping and storage, we plan to test the packing logistics at a few select events this fall to make sure we have the process figured out. We certainly want packing Chicken Pasta to be the same high-energy, fun, and organized experience that you are used to from FtH. If everything goes well you’ll be hearing a lot more about our Chicken Pasta in the fall.

In the meantime, we would appreciate your prayers this fall during our testing phase. We have a plan on paper and in theory right now; may God’s favor be with us as it plays out, so that we can feed the spiritual and physical hunger in even more people!

Because it’s more than a meal,

Scott Hahn | Packathon Director