Legumes for the Plate of the Future. A course for vocational teachers to bring legumes into the culinary universe (Deliverable 6.4)

Legumes were introduced as an independent food group in the official Danish Dietary Guidelines from 2021, with a quantitative recommendation of eating 100 grams of prepared legumes per day. However, at that time, there were only two recipes with legumes in the full curriculum for chefs. Thus, cooking with legumes was (and still is) a big challenge to implement in many professional kitchens. A preliminary investigation of barriers, potentials and prerequisites for an upskilling course in legumes at the Copenhagen Hospitality College identified some barriers for the further use of legumes in teaching sessions, such as a lack of qualifications and knowledge, and structural need to adapt the students' teaching to the curriculum and exam where legumes were under prioritised. Upskilling among food professionals is thus needed to overcome barriers around legumes. As legumes are foreseen to play a bigger role in the plate of the future, a natural place to start was to create an upskilling course for vocational teachers who teach the culinary students about legumes. In addition to a 2-day cooking-course supplemented presentations on agriculture, nutrition, climate and biodiversity, a fact sheet was created to give examples of the climate footprint of legumes in relation to the climate footprint of other foods. To disseminate the work further, the project ends with an industry day with the same topics as the upskilling course.