Let's get kids cooking!
I’ve got it on good authority (2 friends and the empty flour section in the supermarket!), that people are doing a lot of baking at the moment! Kids love to bake and it’s a great skill for them to learn - but are we missing an opportunity here? Should everything our kids know about the kitchen be cakes and cookies? What about cooking? Cooking real food so that our kids can learn to feed themselves healthy, nutritious foods with the occasional slice of cake thrown in for dessert?!
Cooking is a life skill like no other. Teaching our kids to cook is something that will stay with them throughout their lives - it will affect their health, their mental well being, their finances. Here’s my top 7 benefits of cooking with kids :
It gives children confidence in the kitchen. Sure they might crack a few eggs in the beginning or spill something (lots of things..) but the more they do it, the better and more confident they’ll be.
it helps create more adventurous eaters. A more adventurous eater, in turn, tends to be a healthier eater as they are more willing to try new things, thus eating a wider, healthier diet. And what parent doesn’t want that?!
as with baking, kids learn about measuring and weighing. They learn how heat changes food and how adding too much or too little salt can affect the taste of a dish - science, maths, reading - cooking covers all the bases
kids learn about food and where it comes from when cooking, giving them a better respect for the environment. They can learn how to reduce waste in the kitchen, again helping the environment, an issue children are very engaged in.
you get to spend productive, quality time together with your children - basically killing two birds with the one stone! An hour spent peeling, chopping and cooking together also gets the dinner made!
cooking, like baking, unleashes creativity in all of us - including our children. My daughter has spent hours making ballerinas out of pastry to top a chicken pie (yes, it did make the dinner late ….by an hour!). And I love trying new recipes or adding something different to a favourite recipe to see how it changes it.
And of course, the mental health benefits that come with cooking (and baking too, in fairness!). The kids get engrossed in cooking helping to take their mind off other anxieties they might be feeling at this time. And the feeling of achievement that comes with eating your own food (unless they - or you - have burnt it!) is immense.
And I know, I know - there’s the extra cleaning and the extra time it takes when cooking with our kids. And it’s frustrating and they spill things and it’s dangerous (try using the safe Kiddies Food Kutter for little fingers!) and they stick their fingers in the butter but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day! And at the moment, when many of us have that extra time - what better way to spend it?
“Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love.
”
Preparing food with children, using the kiddies food kutter and safety food peeler