Cooking With Kids
Without food man would perish and life is too good to think about perishing, so let’s start early teaching the youth how to survive in the kitchen, how to eat well, grow strong, live healthier and longer. If they’re already making cereal and/or pulling franks out of the refrigerator because they want you to make them a hot dog, it may be time for you to prepare to take the next step: teach them how to cook.
“If you give a man something to eat, he will eat for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, he will eat for a lifetime,” this so very true, therefore, it’s time to break out the pots and pans --depending on the child’s age. If they are under 12-years old, you’d fair well to break out the microwavable dishes instead, 2 aprons (to give the lesson a more professional touch) and a rundown of the kitchen basics:
- Always wash your hands upon entering anyone’s kitchen.
- Get your dishes/pots, pans, measuring cups and cooking utensils
- Get your ingredients onto the counter
Teach them when they are young how to do a thing properly, and they won’t forget. Cooking is also a way to implement and exercise organization in a youngsters life; coincidentally another life necessary skill – more nourishment from the kitchen.
Kids know, first hand, what they like and statistics show that they are much more likely to eat the meals that they prepare for themselves. Cooking creates a sense of ownership and pride. If you’re in search of a way to pipe down the meal-time battles, cooking with kids is a great way to get them to be more willing to try new foods.
Introduced colorful fruits and vegetables and educate the lad on the benefits of them as you teach them how to chop, cut, dice or stir. Knowing why a vegetable may have been chosen to pair with a meal over another is good information to have. Also, meals prepared from scratch usually contain more nutrients and fewer calories, chemicals and sweeteners than pre-packaged foods and restaurant meals.
Cooking together provides a natural way to discuss nutrition and the impact that food choices have on our lives and the environment around us, in the long run. The more you educate children about food the more likely they will understand and appreciate the dietary structure and menus, therefore, becoming more apt to extend taste of their budding palettes.
Here are a few more benefits that can be acquired by the child via learning to cook:
- Reading and following recipes improves math, science and reading comprehension skills.
- Eating dishes from other countries enables learning about other cultures, foreign languages, and geography, and provides a culinary vocabulary.
- Learning about food preparation enhances organizational and cleanliness skills.
- Chances are greater that your child will eat the healthy food you are making if he helps.
- Cooking together strengthens feelings of responsibility and being a valued member of the team, will form a lifetime of good memories and help to strengthen bonds.
It’s not ever too early to teach a child how to survive and the kitchen is great place to start, however, it’s the nourishment beyond the meal that makes this lesson most remarkable in the long run.