Official Liaison College Blog

Monday, April 28, 2014

As Sure As i Can Be - A Graduate Success Story


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.