Transition Times: Food has turned into a lifestyle obsession. But that doesn't mean we know a lot about healthy eating, reports Gráinne Faller

Gordon Ramsay, the Michelin-starred celebrity chef, is hoping he has cracked the US. After two series of Hell's Kitchen, his American reality-television show, last month he opened a restaurant in New York, named Gordon Ramsay at the London, to a flurry of media attention.

It's a strange phenomenon. Once upon a time cracking the US was an occupation reserved for pop stars and comedians. Some chefs may have achieved a certain level of fame back then, but they weren't superstars. Now all of that has changed.

From Jamie Oliver's good deeds to Nigella Lawson's chocolate desserts, food has become a lifestyle obsession. Just think of the number of chefs in the UK and Ireland alone with television programmes. From the horrifying fast-food experiment documented in the film Super Size Me to the comforting eccentricity of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in his self-sufficient River Cottage series, it seems we'll watch anything.

We have become better informed about the importance of what we put in our bodies, so it is no wonder we're interested. All the same, it can be difficult to figure out what's good and what's bad, as it seems that scientific studies can link specific foods first to a healthy heart, then to cancer. What on earth are we supposed to think?

At least there are a couple of ideas that are becoming accepted truths, such as that we should try to eat as much unprocessed food as possible, that we should try to eat free-range or organic meat and that eating local apples is a better idea than eating ones flown from New Zealand.

Students at St Mary's Secondary School in Mallow, Co Cork, know all about the importance of eating locally. For the past few years, they and other students around the country have been taking part in the Agri Aware Healthy Eating Challenge. It involves identifying three ingredients produced in their areas. They must focus on one of them, finding out as much as they can about the production process through interviews, as well as farm and factory visits. Then they create a recipe using the ingredients and raise awareness of healthy eating and the importance of local produce.

It's all very well tracing the path of a crop such as carrots, but Clara O'Keeffe and three of her fellow transition-year students decided to research the production of something much more emotionally difficult. "We chose three local ingredients," she says. "We looked at beef, potatoes and cheese, and we decided to zone in on beef."

The group followed the processing of beef from "the farmer to the table". They interviewed a local farmer and a butcher, and they got permission to visit a slaughterhouse. Clara says: "It was a bit upsetting, but that's only to be expected. It was so well run. I thought it would be a lot worse than it was."

The project got a lot of support from local producers. The girls speak highly of the individuals and large companies that brought them on to their farms and into their factories.

Dairygold was very helpful to Orla Riordan and her group. "We picked milk as our main ingredient," she says. "We interviewed a farmer about it, and we went to the Dairygold lab in Mallow where they test the milk for antibiotics and water content." The girls also went to the plant in Mitchelstown where the milk is processed.

Orla's group is making a quiche; the local beef will be put to good use in a shepherd's pie. Smoked salmon is another local product, as Laura O'Mahony explains: "We found out that the local smoked salmon is made in a small family-run business. Geraldine Bass [ of the Old Millbank Smokehouse] showed us the entire process. She also gave us the recipe for smoked salmon, cream and penne."

The positive action doesn't stop with the competition. The girls are going to hold a healthy-eating week at their school early next year. They will have stands with local produce and recipes for their peers to try. "You know that young people today are called Pot Noodle teens," says Clara. "It's because we're supposed to like convenience food more than healthy food. We did a taste test and got people to try our shepherd's pie and a convenience-food one. The majority of people picked ours."

For more information about the Agri Aware competitions and programmes for secondary schools, see www.agriaware.ie and click on the Secondary Schools tab

At the cutting edge

It's not easy being a chef. You have to be passionate about food, as antisocial hours and demanding customers could easily put you off the job. Last year a group of second-year students at

St Mary's Secondary School in Mallow, Co Cork, were runners-up in Agri Aware's Healthy Eating Challenge. "We were completely shocked," says Róisín Kelleher, one of the students. "We won €1,000 from Agri Aware, and Neven Maguire came to the school to do a cookery demonstration."

With books, media appearances and an award-winning restaurant - MacNean House & Bistro, in Co Cavan - Maguire is the closest thing Ireland has to Jamie Oliver. His demonstration inspired some of St Mary's transition-year students to ask him to take them on for work experience. Anna Caplice wasn't expecting much when she wrote to the bistro, but she was pleasantly surprised. "He said: 'Yeah, no problem,' " she says. "He had accommodation for us and everything."

The girls worked full days in the kitchen. "We'd go down to the kitchen at about one o'clock in the afternoon," says Anna. "We wouldn't get out until two the following morning." The late hours didn't deter them, however, and when Maguire was giving a cookery demonstration in Donegal the girls were up and about at 8am to meet him. "We just helped him with all his gear, and then we got to watch the demonstration," says Anna.

The work was interesting. "I didn't think we'd get to do as much. Everybody in the kitchen was so nice. We got to do small things, like starters and desserts, and Neven showed us how to present everything well."

For people looking for work experience this year, Anna says: "If there's something you really want to do, there's no holding back. Try and get in touch with anyone who can help."

She had gone to Cavan unsure about whether she wanted to work in a restaurant kitchen. "I don't like definites," Anna says. "But it was really inspiring. I'd love to be a chef."

How's your relationship with food?

The death, three weeks ago, of the Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston, at 21, has put the spotlight back on eating disorders. Reston died of an infection caused by anorexia nervosa, yet her body and face were used to sell clothes. She's not the only one this year. Luisel Ramos, a Uruguayan model, died of heart failure in August.

Something is very wrong. Fashion magazines may not cause eating disorders, but they breed discontent. If you're skinny you're disgusting. If you're fat you're a laughing stock. If you're normal, like Charlotte Church, you can be praised one week and lambasted for your cellulite the next.

Tina Dunne, a former home- economics teacher, is trying to cultivate a healthy attitude to food and eating with her Teen-a-Lifestyle programme. "I focus on a lot of foods that are good for healthy hair, skin, good muscle tone and so on," she says. "It's very much to do with the age group I'm teaching. A lot of them know about healthy eating and the food pyramid, but they don't seem to relate it to their own lives."

The programme tends to take the form of two or three group sessions; students are invited to examine their lifestyles and eating habits in order to gain a greater understanding of themselves and their lives. Aisling Galligan, a TY student at St Joseph of Cluny Secondary School in Killiney, Co Dublin, says: "We kept a food diary for a few days, and Tina assessed one of the girls to get an idea of the average diet. White bread was a big issue, and none of us were drinking enough water. She didn't say not to eat things. It was more about moderation."

Laura Muldowney, a classmate of Aisling's, says: "I definitely try to drink a lot more water now. Whenever I ate nuts and things they were always salted, so now I try to eat them without that." Dunne also holds tastings during the sessions. "She introduced us to new fruits, like apricots," says Laura."She also told us about organising our time so that we'd have time to cook," says Aisling. "Most of us had done healthy eating in science and home economics," says Laura. "But that was geared at exams. I think this kind of woke it up in people."

Food is only one element of the programme, which looks at the whole lifestyle of the young people Dunne works with. "I think it works because it's fun," she says. "Also, I'm a stranger, so they can ask questions they might not ask a teacher."

Teen-a-Lifestyle costs €200 a session. See www.tina dunne.com