Why Cook with your Kids?
By Cooking with Kids
Food brings families together. Preparing meals and snacks together can be some of the most meaningful and impactful time you’ll have with your children. It’s fun, it’s messy, it’s teaching your kids skills that will last a lifetime. And something we know from 20+ years of Cooking with Kids: when children help prepare healthy foods, they are excited to try them!
A classroom teacher told us a story after her students tasted four varieties of fresh peas during a Cooking with Kids tasting lesson: “I have students who have very limited diets. One student recently went shopping with his mom and he asked for peas. She turned to him and said, ‘You do not like peas.’ He picked up a snow pea and ate it. He now comes to school with pears and peas in his lunch, where before it was filled with cookies and chips!”
Kids who help plan, prepare and cook meals are much more likely to enjoy a broad array of foods — many more than adults often imagine. Right now in Santa Fe, kids are making black bean tostadas with salsa fresca in their Cooking with Kids classes. Although we do the whole thing from scratch, a busy family might enjoy making just the beans or just the salsa, and then fill in with ready-made tostada shells. Kids love mixing up beans, tearing lettuce or grating cheese. It doesn’t have to be complicated!
There are ways to involve even the smallest helpers in the kitchen. Little hands can tear leafy herbs into tiny pieces, roll dough, mash up beans or potatoes, or whisk salad dressing. Older kids can use butter knives to dice zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and a variety of fruits. The trick is to ask yourself, “Could a child be doing this?” It may take a little extra time and effort, but it will turn cooking into a conversation that opens the doorway to healthy eating for your entire family.
For more great ideas, recipes, “how-to” videos and other resources, check out the Cooking with Kids website: cookingwithkids.org. You can also get “The Cooking with Kids Cookbook” by CWK founders Lynn Walters and Jane Stacey at Amazon.com.
Cooking with Kids is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works with thousands of public school children all over Santa Fe, N.M., and provides resources for families and educators across the globe. Cooking with Kids and its staff aims to share the love of cooking healthy foods with children and encourage them to make healthy food choices through hands-on learning with fresh, affordable foods from diverse cultural traditions.
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