cooking with kids

Kids Cook French: Eggs Jeannette

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As a society, we have tried to encourage kids to eat healthy foods by hiding them, disguising them as something else, or pouring processed cheese sauce on them, and I think that we do a disservice to children by doing so. Children don’t come into the world eating only chicken nuggets, pizza, and french fries. They will eat the food that they are given. That’s the food that they will become used to and like.

 

So, if we feed them only “kid” food, those are the tastes they will develop. If, however, we feed them all sorts of foods, they will eat them as well. Our daughter, Shorey, eats almost everything. Now, though, at ten years old, she doesn’t like asparagus, tripe, polenta, sweet potatoes, or head cheese. We’re okay with that — and her grandfather says that she will change anyway.

 

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All Treats, No Tricks: How to de-junk Halloween for kids

halloween kid

With jumbo candy bags for sale everywhere right now, and ads blasting sugary treats to give out next week, it's easy to associate Halloween with "fun size" giveaways. But what I've discovered in teaching cooking to kids is that they can definitely be swayed away from that deluge of junk — you just have to get them in the kitchen.

 

When kids make up their own treats, they quickly catch on to the idea that it's okay to have them in moderation, especially if you create savory foods at the same time. Even in my adult classes, I've found that having a larger variety of dishes is most popular, leading to guilt-free portion sizes for desserts. 

 

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Curing Picky Eater Syndrome: 10 ways to get kids to eat real, healthy food

picky eaters

It’s amazing what kids will eat when they' re on the farm or in a garden — digging carrots from the earth, ripping beans from the plant (and taking the leaves with them), picking sugar snap peas, and pulling tomatoes from the vine. Kids love to grow their own food, too, like potted herbs in the kitchen, radish seed sprouts, and patio pepper plants. Last summer I overheard a youngster say, “I love cherry tomatoes, especially the little yellow ones!”

 

Too good to be true? It’s totally not. Getting kids to eat healthy real food is not that difficult. There are many ways to break the "picky eater syndrome," some will work for your kiddo better than others but I’ve found there are a few key steps that really help:  

 

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Teach Kids To Grow, Eat and Share

If you have not heard the name Laura Greene or Grow, Eat, Share, take note. She is an example of yet another bold and ambitious food lover who is trying to fill the gaps in our food education system. The story starts when Laura was working as a volunteer with a local kindergarden and she came face to face with the realities of what kids were eating.

Knowing that the parents are choosing to pack their kids junk food for lunch did not deter her from trying to teach the kids, in spite of their parents. What really "sealed her fate", if you will, was when she brought one of these kindergardeners to Riverbend Farm, only to discover that he did not know what a farm was. I suppose that when your lunch is glowing with artificial color and absent of vegetables, how could anyone even think that food comes from a farm?

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Cooking Up the Good Life with Jenny Breen and Susan Thurston

Jenny Breen is a Minnesota "good food" legend. She's a caterer, chef, Bush fellow, student in public health and nutrition, teacher, visionary, wife, and mom. She's very good at being all of these things, and chances are excellent that she knows more about good, local, healthy food than you do.

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