Sandra Bruton has a passion.
Actually, she has several passions and they all intertwine beautifully
and deliciously in her healthy food venture:
Sure Chef.
It started in high school.
Sandra wanted to enhance her passion for cookery – a passion, by the
way, that she developed from her mother, a Chef (and founder of Sure
Chefs). Sandra enrolled for the culinary
program at Liaison College in Barrie. Because
the classes at Liaison College are half days, Sandra was able to complete her
high school diploma in the afternoons while studying culinary arts in the
mornings. Then, after school, she would
dash to her co-op job as a dishwasher.
Her life was busy and very much leading her on a lifelong journey.
At this point, Sandra’s culinary career goal was to bake and
specialize in the pastry arts. But her
body didn’t agree with that at all; she was over-sugared and under-weight and
generally unhealthy (which caused her to also be unhappy). It wasn’t long before Sandra took another turn
in the culinary road. The solution to
her career and health issues was clear:
study nutrition. Which she did
(at the Canadian School of Nutrition) and that lead to a new appreciation of
food and chemicals and how the body processes what we feed it.
After high school, Sandra moved to Egypt where her mom.
brother and step father had moved (he’s an engineer that works abroad a
lot). Sandra worked in her mom’s
catering business while her brother attended an elite private school. The new outlook for nutrition opened her eyes
in many ways. She was overwhelmed by the
obesity and health issues around the kids at her brother’s school; an elite
school with world class facilities and the kids were lethargic and over-weight. Her newfound passion for nutrition combined
with her existing passion for cooking started another passion: helping people learn about what they eat and
how to prepare it. The first class of
Sure Chefs was established as a summer camp and kids learned about healthy
choices and how to prepare the foods to their liking to stimulate the craving
for healthy options that provided energy and nutrients to growing bodies. The feedback was outstanding. Sandra had found her ultimate passion!
Unfortunately the revolution in Egypt ended the journey and
Sandra ultimately moved again to join family in Argentina. It was here that she started the “Mom and
Kids Picky Eater” program. Where kids
would take healthy food and make it three ways – writing down every recipe and
noting which method they liked best. By
the end of the classes, each student completed the program with a complete
cookbook of recipes that they had written.
This outcome reinforced Sandra’s belief that kids will eat food that
they have prepared and if it is food they like it’s even better.
Now back in Canada Sandra has continued her journey of
passion. She is presently hosting Junior
Sure Chef classes at Liaison College in Etobicoke with great success. She is the host of a community TV show
featuring her ideas on super foods, kids, cooking and healthy
eating/living. But her passion has
spurred her on to really make a difference:
Sandra is writing a grant proposal for a Sure Chef food truck. The food truck would enable her to go to all
schools in Ontario and teach kids how to make good food taste great and choose
a healthy menu. With her food truck she
could train 120 kids per day and do an entire school in a week. She would focus on allergies and other
dietary concerns all the while showing kids how easy it is to make healthy food
choices and prepare for themselves. In
addition she would like to start a series of classes for Mom’s who are plagued
with the lunch making phobia – we all know someone who dreads the school year
only because of the chore of making lunches (that don’t get eaten if they are
not palatable). There’s also the Teen
Series where teens will focus on body issues (even skin conditions can be
helped with diet) and self-esteem while loving food and its preparation. That’s just for starters. Her Facebook page “Sure Chefs” is chock full
of helpful ideas and recipes, too.
This lovely, bright-eyed young lady is passionate about her
craft and wants to share it. Her energy
and enthusiasm is contagious; that’s for Sure.
