Meredith Michael - Food for Good

Food for Good reflects the warm, positive, can-do spirit of Eat My Lunch and is a practical must-have for every kitchen.

Eat My Lunch is a social enterprise that we started in June 2015 to make it easy for Kiwis to help other Kiwis. We were shocked to hear that one in four children right here in New Zealand live in poverty and go without lunch every day, and we wanted to help to create change by providing lunches for those children. It works like this: you buy one lunch for yourself, and another lunch will be given to a child right here in New Zealand who cant afford their own. Buy One. Give One. Weve been blown away by the success of this.

In our first two years, we have given around 450,000 lunches to Kiwi kids in need at 46 low-decile schools in Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington. We do this with the help of more than 3000 volunteers, who come in every morning to help make the lunches and deliver them, and also with the help of our dedicated team of Eat My Lunch workers. Youll see photos of some of these amazing people in the pages of this book, as well as some of the kids who get the lunches. Earlier this year, we also launched Eat My Dinner, with a range of tasty, family-friendly dinners that are delivered to homes. For every dinner bought, we give a lunch to a child who needs one. This has been a major new development for us, and were thrilled to be able to share some of our dinner recipes with you in this book.

Michael Meredith, internationally acclaimed chef and restaurant owner, helped to start Eat My Lunch, and with the team has developed the delicious meals for Eat My Lunch, Eat My Dinner and this cookbook. The recipes include salads, sandwiches, wraps, soups, dinners and sweet treats, and they range from simple, wholesome food for children to gourmet treats for adults. We hope youll enjoy cooking from this book and that it will prove to be one of your favourites. Theres no doubt that providing these lunches is helping Kiwi kids. Nutritious food is a fundamental, basic need, and it is essential for these children to have good food in order to be able to learn at school. We receive such positive feedback from schools about childrens improved concentration and behaviour, their improved health.

Importantly, we are also told that they are just happier in general, knowing that they are going to receive a meal every day. We cant thank everyone who is and has been involved with Eat My Lunch enoughand that includes you, as a buyer of this book. You have all helped to make a difference. Lisa King, Michael Meredith and the Eat My Lunch team