DURHAM -- As student diners blithely streamed by with plates of ravioli, pizza and grilled chicken in Holloway Commons on Wednesday night, nearby three teams of student chefs were feeling pressure. Which one had produced the next winning recipe for the University of New Hampshire dining menu?

It was the second year of the Healthy Chef Competition hosted by dining services in partnership with the national Guiding Stars program.

UNH was one of the first colleges to start using the program four years ago, when Guiding Stars ratings typically were seen only in supermarkets.

According to the Guiding Stars website (www.guidingstars.com), “Guiding Stars is an objective patented nutrition guidance program that rates the nutritional quality of food using information from the Nutrition Facts Panel and the ingredients list. Foods are rated and receive a score based on the assignment of credits and debits. Rated foods are marked with easy-to-follow tags indicating 0, 1, 2 or 3 stars.”

The university consistently sends recipes to Guiding Stars for review and tweaks them as necessary to make them healthier for students.

The challenge on Wednesday night was for students themselves to come up with a healthy and delicious meal that will be shared throughout campus.

When the judging was complete, less than 10 points separated the three two-student teams. Team “Finger Lickin” came out the winner with its dish of gluten-free chicken, asparagus and side salad.

Team members Andrew Crispin, 21, and Ryan Huard, 20, study biochemistry and chemical engineering, respectively, but they've had an unofficial minor in cooking together since moving into off-campus housing two years ago.

“We figured, 'why not?,' because we like cooking for the fun of it, and we like creating dishes that appeal to many palates,” Crispin said of their decision to enter the contest.

Crispin and Huard were the first to present their dish to the panel of five judges, which included members of the university dining staff and Erin Dow, a Guiding Stars expert chef.

Crispin said that as he watched the two other chef tandems present their dishes, his confidence in his team's chances of winning diminished.

Theresa Conn, 21, and Emily Ficarra, 20, created a tilapia dish flavored with a savory balsamic sauce and accompanied by a fall salad with apple harvest vinaigrette.

The third team — Kelsey MacDonald and Kate Westcott, both 19 — presented an eye-pleasing plate of sautéed spinach with toasted garlic and sprigs of lemon zest, salt-and-pepper chicken and roasted red peppers.

The teams had to submit their recipes to Guiding Stars ahead of time for review, and Conn said she and Ficarra were surprised to learn that adding honey to their recipe would add too much sugar to make the Guiding Stars rating system.

“It gives the students a little insight on what it takes to create a recipe and have the students enjoy themselves,” UNH Dining chef Chris Kaschak said.

Jon Plodzik, director of UNH dining services, said the competition is a fun, entertaining way to showcase the Guiding Stars system.

“Any one of these three dishes could have been part of our menu offering at any time,” Plodzik told the student chefs. “Each plate had a different flair, great creativity, different flavors, context of textures. Well done.”

Plodzik said UNH first considered instituting Guiding Stars in just its on-campus convenience stores.

“But it seemed if we really want to make an impact on people's behavior, putting it in the dining halls would be most effective,” Plodzik said.

He said it was a massive undertaking to have every ingredient listed and checked by the Guiding Stars proprietary algorithms.

“We had to have the nutritional information on every single ingredient that made up every single menu item,” Plodzik said.

It took a year of trial and error to gain a satisfactory understanding of what ingredients and dishes would qualify for stars, Plodzik said. He used the example of a marinara sauce deemed too high in sugar and sodium. “From our perspective, that's a good thing to know,” he said.

Feedback from students has been positive, according to Plodzik, who said they like the simplicity of having the three-star rating system implemented in front of each menu item.

The program has been expanded to the Union Court in the Memorial Union Building, and dining services is in the process of reviewing implementation in the Dairy Bar. (Don't worry, Plodzik promised; ice cream would remain on the menu.)

“For us, a nutritional program is based on choice. We believe that because of the depth of the menu, students can make better decisions,” Plodzik said. “Guiding Stars allows our guests to make those educated decisions they may not have been able to make in the past.”

UNH President Mark Huddleston has challenged the university community to make the Durham campus the healthiest in the nation by 2020. Wednesday night was a step in that direction.

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Gretyl Macalaster may be reached at gmacalaster@newstote.com.