If seeing retired 6’8″, 330-lb. NFL offensive tackle Jared Veldheer serving homemade lunches in your school cafeteria doesn’t make your kids believe that eating their veggies will actually—no kidding—make them big and strong, we’re not sure what will. The father of two retired from 12 years of professional football and is now the the kitchen director at St. Paul the Apostle School in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
What may seem like a career-180 actually shares plenty of similarities with playing professional football, Veldheer explained in an interview with TODAY’s Harry Smith. As kitchen director, he orders supplies, prepares meals and serves 300 students every day. “I mean, it seems, seems a lot more mundane, but trust me, if one of those things falls out of step, then your whole operation is is in jeopardy, and then the quarterback gets sacked.”
So what’s worse: an opposing defensive line or a line of hungry kids? Veldheer admitted that students aren’t quite as fearsome as some of the football stars he’s faced down, but pleasing them is no walk in the park—especially the kindergarteners. The kids “are very honest… and it’s helpful because they’re happy to tell you if they like it and they’re happy to tell you “no, that’s disgusting.”
Luckily, Veldheer’s kitchen operation enjoys universal acclaim. Parents—who at first doubted that the big guy in the kitchen could deliver—admitted to Smith that Veldheer’s food “is better cooking than I can do at home… that’s what my son says.” School principal Michelle Morrow agrees. “We started getting more (parent) volunteers in the lunchroom because our volunteers get to eat the food… and we constantly get (asked), ‘Are you going to offer takeout?'”
Veldheer, a self-proclaimed picky eater as a child, later became a dedicated foodie. “There’s so much around culture, globally, centered around food, getting together having a meal, having conversation,” he said. “To me, it’s not only like nourishing to my body, but to my soul.” Add to his passion for good food his nutritional know-how and you’ve got one heck of a cafeteria menu, with origins in a very unlikely place: the NFL.
Before retiring from football, he spent a lot of time wondering ‘How do you optimize your life (and) get the most out of the, you know, the blessing that we’ve been given on this earth?’… Taking that curiosity for purpose has led me down some different roads in life.”
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