Spanish chef Xanty Elías has won the Basque Culinary World Prize 2021 for his initiative “Los Niños se Comen El Futuro”, which works to educate the next generation about healthy eating. Xanty has immersed himself in social projects to benefit the region. In 2017 he co-founded “Fundación Prenauta” with other local businesspeople, a non-profit that partners with community members to promote economic growth, providing consulting services and projects facilitation across the founders’ fields of expertise. Prenauta’s projects include a start-up incubator to source funding for entrepreneurs in the region. Elías also educates children in the region about healthy eating. Elías believes that it’s possible to promote health and reform the way people think about and interact with food.
To address this, in 2018 “Fundación Prenauta” launched “Los Niños se Comen El Futuro”, an initiative that collaborates with companies and institutions throughout Andalusia to provide cultural education in schools. The programme teaches students traditional Andalusian recipes and shows them how to apply academic subjects like mathematics and chemistry to cooking, as well as educating them about healthy and sustainable eating. As part of the programme, chefs visit schools to deliver masterclasses. In the 2019/20 academic year, the programme reached over 15,000 schoolchildren across more than 100 schools in Andalusia. Elías hopes to expand “Los Niños se Comen El Futuro” throughout Spain at a national level.
