Watch the Fooditude mission video to find
out what we’re all about

With this mission video, you’ll step in to Fooditude... Learn about how Fooditude empowers kids to make healthy choices and how fun food discoveries are made from farm to plate to compost bin! See kids cooking, tasting, gardening, and getting into their food groove. Learn how you can become part of it all!

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Sink your teeth into a kids' TV revolution today!

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* Please note Fooditude is a for-profit project. Gifts are NOT tax deductible.

Urban honeybees!

Watch our mission video premiere

If you couldn't make our Taste of Fooditude event for the unveiling of our mission video, you can still take in the sights and sounds by watching this short clip.

What Is Fooditude?

Good question. First of all, Fooditude is completely and totally a real word! (Alright, "Fooditude" may not actually be a real word but let's keep that between us, ok?) But if Fooditude was found in a dictionary, the definition would be:

A PLACE!

It's where you, your friends, and family have fun eating together, where you cook food into edible art with rockin' chefs; where you hang out with farmers, dig veggies from the ground, and watch worms turn food into soil. Fooditude is where you look at your plate and discover the world.

A MINDSET!

When you're in the Fooditude groove, it's hip to taste new foods, fun to experiment in the kitchen, and cool to grow what you eat. Cook it, compost it, explore it, grow it, taste it, and tell others what you think. Chew your way into YOUR OWN FOODITUDE!

A FLAVOR!

We want to wake up your taste buds and let you sink your teeth into this big, delicious world that's waiting to be explored. Whether it's sweet, spicy, salty, zany, chewy, or gooey, Fooditude flavors will WOW your mouth.

Our Mission

“Fooditude” is a reality based episodic television program for “Tweens” (children between 8 and 12) that keeps kids and food as its central theme. The program interactively teaches the basics of cooking and nutrition in a fun, relevant and age appropriate way with guest appearances by food professionals, chefs and recognizable personalities. “Fooditude” will engage “Tweens” by teaching food related skills and information including: cooking and gardening; encouraging environmental awareness and stewardship; fostering cultural appreciation, social interaction and teamwork; and providing culinary history and food science facts, all of which empower kids to make healthy choices in their own lives.

The People Behind Fooditude

Jodi Balis

Years ago, before I understood how to speak the language of "dry beans", I bought some to prepare a soup for a large cooking gig. Four full stock pots of cooked beans later, this cooking comedy of errors made a great four course (bean filled) meal, and an adventurous and fearless cook out of me...

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Elise Jaffe

Can you sing all the lyrics to every song ever performed on Reading Rainbow? I can. Does that make me qualified to produce a kids' tv show? Maybe. How about the years producing TV commercials geared towards children? That helps. Oh, and I really love to eat.

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Kerry O'Tolski

Perhaps it was the TV commercial I was in at age ten, when I lip-synced a song while walking though a warehouse filled with bales of hay, selling cars for a local dealership. Whatever it was that lured me into the TV business, I am here to stay...

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Jodi Balis

Jodi Balis is a Registered Dietitian living in the DC metro area, and has been a cooking instructor for 10 years. She has been featured twice on “Good Morning America” and made several appearances on local T.V. and radio shows, demonstrating meal planning and healthy eating on a budget. Jodi is currently Director of Nutrition Education Programs at the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington DC, where she oversees cooking and nutrition programs that teach low-income adults and children how to eat healthy with limited resources. Jodi is also owner of Red Lentil Consulting, where she helps clients gain cooking skills and meal-planning skills through hands on “kitchen sessions” in the home. Previously a Nutrition Educator with the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program in Maryland, Jodi trained elementary school teachers to incorporate nutrition into their lessons, and directly taught elementary school aged youth about cooking, gardening, and healthy eating. Before moving to the DC metro area, she was Nutrition Education Manager at a food bank in St. Louis, Missouri, and a cooking instructor at Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Fontbonne University, St. Louis Community College, and other places in the St. Louis metro area. Jodi also regularly appeared on a cooking segment for Health Matters, a local St. Louis television show.

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Elise Jaffe

Elise Jaffe is the Owner and Executive Producer of Big Teeth Productions in Chicago, IL. Elise has been interested in children’s programming and production since her childhood. Her passion for producing and directing theater resulted in many summers teaching acting, writing and improv to children. Her Undergraduate Honors Thesis at Indiana University “Are Broadcasters Making the Grade?” was an account of Children’s Programming following the imposed FCC guidelines in 1996. Her career in Children’s television began at Nickelodeon (Blue’s Clues) and Lancit Media (Reading Rainbow, Puzzle Place, Outward Bound). Since moving into advertising in 1999, Elise has produced at agencies such as Grey New York, JWT and DraftFCB with a special focus on the child market. Until starting Big Teeth, the highlight of her career was serving as the head of production at G-Whiz, a youth based advertising and marketing subsidiary of Grey. Her past clients include Hasbro, Topps, Dairy Queen, Jif, Kraft and Nestle. Though the world of Advertising was a profitable place to be, Elise’s moral struggle with selling toys and candy to kids makes her even more motivated to create quality children’s programming.

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Kerry O'Tolski

Kerry O'Tolski is a producer living in Chicago, IL. Kerry has been involved in the television industry for many years dating back to her work as a child actor for television commercials and local theater productions. After receiving her degree in Telecommunication Arts from Butler University she worked for the Children's Television Workshop in New York City in their International production research division for Sesame Street. Most recently, Kerry's work has been in reality television producing episodes for the ABC Family Channel's "Knock First" (a room make-over show for teens and young adults.); Spike TV's "Ultimate Gamer" (a show for young male video game fanatics); and the E! Network/Style Network's fashion makeover program "How Do I Look?" as well as various television commercials and industrial pieces for major corporations. Kerry's most recent work as Producer/Writer has been seen on Animal Planet's "Animal Witness".

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Fooditude in the News

Read, listen, and watch us. . . Fooditude in the news!

Making Chicago Home Blog (January 24, 2010)

Chicago Sun Times (January 11, 2010)

Mindful Metropolis (Dec 2009)

Vocolo interview (Nov 17, 2009)

Reelchicago article (Nov 17, 2009)




In the future

In the future, fooditude.tv will be your GO-CHEW place for food focused fun!

You'll find cool new recipes, share your own with others, play games and enter contests. Plus, you'll be able to join "Club Fooditude" where you can plan your own delicious meals, share green ideas and take food quizzes. The Fooditude website will let you blog about the new foods you eat and what you're doing to help the environment while we Blog about our Fooditude experiences as well. When we take our next big step Fooditude will have a presence on the social media scene!

STAY TUNED....

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