 Editor's note: This is the fifth story in CNN's series exploring the issues surrounding childhood obesity. It's a sweet, sticky, crunchy, ooey-gooey, chocolate-drizzled, cheese-stuffed, deep-fried world out there, and we can't pretend it doesn't tastes pretty darned delicious. Nearly from birth, American kids are blasted with ads for foods that send their taste buds into overdrive, but don't do them any nutritional favors. These treats might be okay in very careful moderation, but if it's hard enough for adults to resist the sugary, salty siren call, how can we expect kids to do so? A parent needs an arsenal. Grab your knives. "There are so many practical and amazing reasons why you should teach your kids to cook," Workman says. "The most obvious is that if you don't, in short order they will find themselves with a takeout menu in their hands, or on line at a supermarket with a cart of frozen food or prepared meals, and ultimately we'll have retirement homes filled with heavy old people nibbling chicken nuggets and debating the merits of barbecue sauce versus honey mustard, both of which will give them heartburn." It's never too early to start, Workman says, and it's not just about knocking out a momentary case of the munchies. "Like any skill, the older you get, the more difficult it is to learn. They will understand and appreciate food in a deeper way, they will be comfortable in the kitchen, they will develop broader palates, and they will be able to entertain people, which is an undervalued and ever-shrinking asset. You will be giving them a new place to discover things and be creative." And the benefits keep adding up, Workman says. "They will learn math, multiplication and fractions. We talk about how this generation are tech natives, growing up with computer skills, so they are completely comfortable with the language of technology. It seems to make a lot of sense to invest a bit of energy into doing the same for them in the kitchen." Tanya Wenman Steel, Editor-in-Chief of Epicurious.com, co-author of "Real Food for Healthy Kids" and mother of identical twin boys, also underscores the importance of early kitchen education. Steel says, "The old adage of if you teach a man to fish, you have fed him for a lifetime particularly resonates with kids. Once they understand what healthy foods are, and how they can make simple things for themselves like snacks, salads, and desserts, then you have empowered them and put them on a path of healthier eating for the rest of their life. Just as we try and teach our kids the golden rules, so, too, should we teach them the golden rules of eating well." While it might seem like a pain in your overworked neck to herd the whole family into the kitchen to prepare a meal, doing it just once a week will have immediate and lasting benefits - and you might even end up enjoying yourselves. Here are five good reasons to get in the kitchen with your kids: It's quality time. Traditions can span generations. It doesn't matter if it's a new homemade pasta every Friday, exploring a different international cuisine every Sunday, delving into Grandma's recipe box or setting up a make-your-own-pizza bar before you watch American Idol. What matters is that it's time spent together, centered around developing healthy habits. Your young ones might even share this comforting tradition with their own kids someday. They'll see the whole picture. And encourage them to get their hands dirty. If they've stirred the pot, peeled the carrots, mashed the sweet potatoes or washed the lettuce, they've still had a role in making the dish. It'll be hard to say no to their own handiwork, even if they have rejected that ingredient when it's appeared on their plate before. Workman notes that it's critical for kids to see exactly what goes into their food. "They will see how much fat or salt or sugar goes into something, and understand why certain foods should be eaten with moderation, and to look at fast food or processed foods with a more educated framework," she says. It's a chance to explore the world. Just make a deal with the whole family to agree upon one - just one - new fruit, vegetable, spice or grain each time you go to the grocery store, and make that the lesson for the week. Study up on its origins, nutritional benefits, cultural importance, cooking methods and traditional dishes and make it the star for one meal. They might not all be hits, but you as a family can decide which ones are crowned king of the kitchen and which are sent straight to the dungeon. It's a confidence booster. Not only might they end up cooking for you (and wouldn't that be a sweet treat?) - once they leave the nest, they'll be the superstar of their college dorm, apartment complex and (gasp!) even date night. Got a favorite recipe or ritual you share with your kids? Please let us know in the comments below and we'll highlight our favorite in an upcoming feature. |
  Recent Posts
 |
 |
|
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertise with us | About us | Help | Advertising Practices
I love cooking with my nine-year-old. On days when we get cranky when I try to help him with his homework or get him to clean his room, we can cook together and get along perfectly. One day he smelled every spice in the cabinet, and put together his own spice mix from the ones he liked. We call it "Malcolm's supreme spicy spice mix." It's really delicious! He had the idea to use it in these croquettes, and they're wonderful!
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2011/10/25/malcolms-supreme-spicy-croquettes/
It's wonderful to see him so creative and confident, and he'll try more foods if he has a hand in making them.
I should say, one thing that's very important is that we try whatever he suggests. I might try to steer him a little (and he actually takes my cooking advice more genially than he takes any other advice I give him!) but for the most part, I'll let him call the shots. This way we've come up with some great new culinary innovations...grated toasted beets(!) for instance, which he used in Malcolm's Supreme Spicy sauce, with nuts, roasted red peppers, tomatoes and his spice mix. Truly one of the best sauces I've had! He helps me to think about cooking without preconceived ideas of what can and can't be done. It's liberating!
I completely resonate with this article. You asked for favorite kid-friendly recipes: We make smoothies. Dump into the blender about 2c (16oz) plain non-fat or low-fat yogurt, kid's choice of juice (about 8 oz), kid's choice of frozen fruit – still frozen: mango, strawberries, bananas, berries, peaches, etc (about 2 c). Blend it all up. We top it with "crunchies" AKA toasted wheat germ. This has the added benefit of being pretty foolproof, so they can play around with flavor combinations. A current fave is mango / strawberry. I love the creative side of cooking, and the ability to make things to my own palate, and this gives my little ones a starter step in that direction.
I couldn't agree more about the value of teaching children to cook. I don't have kids of my own but as a teacher in an all-boys school here in Toronto, I do my part with my weekly cooking club for 8-11 year olds. Every Monday, we gather in the science lab with some hotplates and rudimentary equipment and we manage to make healthy, from scratch meals in under an hour. We've worked out way through a couple of Jamie Oliver books and I have invited in guest chefs from around Toronto to work with the boys. It's one of our most popular clubs. I love that it gives me a chance to connect with my students outside the classroom – it's wonderful that my students get to see me as a real person doing something I am really passionate about (I love teaching French too but it's not everyone's favorite subject, shall we say...!). It's truly a highlight of my week. Many of the boys now cook at home and their parents are thrilled.
http://www.eatlivetravelwrite.com/category/les-petits-chefs/
Great article...We ended up buying a little kiddie tower that raises our 2 and 4 y/os to counter height – they call it their 'Box' and they all have their own set of spoons, bowls, etc that they use to help with cooking. It's play to them now but for all the reasons listed in the article they're engaged and aware of what they're eating and what it took to get on their plate.
I'm not going to say that it magically made them like their veggies though one loves her broccoli and the other is a tried and true carnivore, but they aren't intimidated by cooking and actively ask to 'help'.
I was, because of life circumstances, cooking for my family by the age of ten. It has only been a positive in my life since. My wife can also cook (and does most of the time). The result is that I can get tasty low-oil foods. My children will have cooking as part of their family experience and it will be one of the best investments we make for them.
Since most parents have little cooking skills and buy pre-packaged food for their dinners it would be better to teach kids at school to read labels and understand what is in their food. In my book, Gaining Weight:high fructose corn syrup and obesity, I go over labels and especially high fructose corn syrup. Your body and brain recognizes glucose to feel full, not fructose. So kids are hungry and eat more. Fructose also causes a fatty liver and leads to obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. Giving up this one thing would be a great start. Dr. Dee Takemoto
A man who knows how to cook will be popular among girls and in laws, while a woman who also knows how to cook will make sure to choose a partner who will also knows how to cook. I suggested to my boys that they learn how to cook and take care of infants, so far my daughter in law has been hands off from the kitchen and her two kids, its always been my son's job to care for his two children. He has no time for a roving eyes, and all his in laws love him because of his talent
in raising his family.
Both my parents worked (a LOT), so we split up daily dinner service between the 5 of us, each with a night or two a week. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to cook for my family- I can pretty much cook anything, and even replicate recipes I enjoy from local restaurants or just come up with my own. Thanks, Life!
Just how can our overweight or obese mothers teach their children how to cook when they themselves have next to little cooking skills themselves? And they are going to steer their children away from overweight/obese children by regularly bringing their children to dine at fast-food restaurants? where they can all enjoy eating their junk foods. It ios more than likely their children will soon be as fat as their mothers. As we see these days, fat is becoming the norm.
You're kidding, right? They can learn themselves, and they should, for their own health and that of their children. I had next to no cooking skills when I moved out of my parents' house. I knew how to boil pasta in water and make toast. My mother did cook, but she never taught me much about it. I started out using basic and easy to understand recipes, and progressed from there. You better believe I am going to teach my children how to cook when they get old enough (they are still very little). It is one of the most basic life skills. I understand that many working mothers do not have a lot of time to cook, but there are fast and easy recipes for when you're short on time. There's also the option of cooking for a week or a month at a time. I knew one family growing up that only cooked once a month since the mother worked full time, and it worked for them.
I agree with your views on this subject. I also feel that obesity is a problem that should be more looked at in this country. Would you mind reading my blog at "http://yetanotheraveragejoe.blogspot.com/"?
I would like to have your perspective.
Joe Trapp
jt249110@ohio.edu
The Green Room at Ohio University
Cooking is a great way to learn math. At mathtricks.org, we try to add articles that will help parents instill upon their kids an appreciation of mathematics, and teaching them how to cook is one of the best ways!
Reblogged this on This Is How I Eat and commented:
Family Day is certainly a newer holiday in the Canadian calendar, but by no means less loved than any other. Besides, two months after Christmas and another two before any other holiday is exactly the right time for a day off. And what better way to spend a mid-winter sojourn than with the people that love you most – (presumably) your family.
Big family meals were a big old deal while I was growing up, so the idea of preparing and sharing a meal with my hypothetical future children really appeals to me. Since our American counterparts certainly love family, eating, and sharing as much as we do, I thought this piece on the importance of getting those kiddies into the kitchen would be a good read for today.
My Mom started us cooking when we were in grade school. I lived on my own for many years, and learned even more about cooking, but also how much prepared food costs compared to raw food and cooking it yourself. (Prepared foods are horrendously expensive, in case you hadn't noticed. Not to mention bad for you). To this day, I love to cook, and can easily make a meal as good as anything I've had in a restaurant, or in many cases, better.
It's never too early to get your kids involved, even if it's basic stuff. I know too many people that literally have no idea how to cook anything, and subsist on prepared foods or takeout.
Unfortunately I don't cook and have 2 young girls. I was not taught to cook (my mom hates it) and the dishes I've tried in the past are okay at best. My girls are very picky and won't touch anything I cook for them if it's not pasta with butter or cereal with milk. I don't want them to have the same experiences I do with food, but cannot figure out a way to change this part of my life. BTW, I'm very skinny because I don't much – obesity is not a problem in my house. We all eat minimally and our snack choices are healthy-ish (goldfish crackers, peanut butter, cheese, fruit) – it is mealtime that is boring and routine. I am truly stuck in a rut and fear that my kids will never mature their taste buds and try new foods.
Practice makes perfect. Aim to cook 1 new recipe a week until you get better at cooking.
As far as teaching the kids to eat well, this blog has lots of good information: http://itsnotaboutnutrition.squarespace.com/
My account is screwed up, how do I fix it CNN?
I noticed above you asked for recipes to be posted in the comments below. While a lively discussion of whether or not the article is right has ensued, I don't see any recipes yet. For all those who are "nay sayer's," I have been teaching a Kid's in the Kitchen class for the last 7-8 years. This is one component of relieving childhood and adult obesity. Not the cure-all magic bullet, but a piece of the puzzle. Stop blaming this or that, and start putting all the components together: exercise, diet, cooking skills, attitude, mental health, and spiritual health. That will make a whole person of average weight. It's not advertisers, fat, calories, and chicken nuggets alone that have shaped America.
My recipe below is based on an Irish Cottage Broth recipe and is a healthy, vegetarian option that had my 4-12 year old's begging for more! And yes, the 4 year old chopped the veggies too!
Jenn's Cottage Broth [(No-Neck Stew) @Destiny LOL!]
Serves: 4
4 cups water
2 tbs. Butter (not margarine- easier to assimilate in the body)
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
4 carrots
4 potatoes
4 stalks celery
1 turnip
salt & pepper to taste
1. Chop onion and garlic fine and set aside.
2. Chop remaining veggies into small, but not fine pieces, as they cook faster.
3. Melt butter in a large pot or dutch oven. Add onion and garlic. Saute' until onions turn clear.
4. Add remaining vegetables and stir-fry until a golden coating begins to form on the bottom of the pan.
5. Add water, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat.
6. Reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until veggies are cooked to the desired tenderness.
And there you have it!!! I would love to put more out there or encourage you to email me if you have questions, but I don't like spam. So if you want more info about what I do, look up Kids in the Kitchen on the City of Temple City, CA website. I think it's under Recreation, Recconnect, Fee and Charge classes.
Happy Cooking!
Essentially what's happened is that the TV ads have become the parents, overriding what you should be teaching your kids. The ads tell kids and you to eat every 15 minutes, and they tell you to eat all the wrong stuff, high calorie foods that make you obese. Over time, you yourself have lost what you needed to keep your weight down, collectively as a nation. The TV ads are designed to get you to consume high calorie foods and spend money on things your body doesn't need. Sugar is great tasting, they know this too, they add it to sell you as many foods as they can get you to consume as rapidly as possible. In foods, sugar tastes fantastic and doesn't do much harm to anyone climbing a mountain each day. Most kids and adults don't do that, so all that excess sugar is calories you don't need, so your body stores it as fat. Whether you're adding sugar to a prepared meal or desert, or it's already in processed food a manufacturer adds to their product, that doesnt' matter. Sugar will still get rapidly stored in your and your kids fat cells, and you both plump up.
It's not who prepared the food, how it was prepared, it's how many calories it has, and how many your body needs during the day. Learn that yourselves, teach your kids the same, turn off the ads that have taken over the parenting instruction, and stop buying the high calorie foods they're programming your kids to eat every 15 minutes.
Everything I just said above, will be wiped out by the thousands of ads run each year saying the opposite, but someone has to say it. I did my part.
As a nation, we need to regulate what the food producers are teaching kids, through their paid for TV advertising. They've run things into the ground with those ads You can either accept obesity, or you can vote to regulate the content they're cramming into society all in the name of their making a buck. Think it doesn't matter? How much will you spend later on diets and hospital stays, when you could have kept your weight, and your kid's weight down the entire time they made their profits.
Yep, not the parent's fault, it is television's fault. Occupy Madison Avenue, Occupy the supermarket, and Occupy the tv stations for brainwashing us into mindless eating.
Fortunately, my brainpower is at X-men levels so that I am immune to what my tv tells me to eat, exercise regularly, eat what I want both healthy and occasionally unhealthy, and live a pretty good lifestyle.
This article like most every article about food doesn't get the heart of the matter. Instead it drifts off into some "comfort" discussion about food and how to feel about it. This doesn't even address the issue. If you want yourself, or your kids to be thin, tell them how to calculate the meal's calories, and plan their day out to keep the calories down, and to plan to get in some physical activity time each day. Tell them if they eat 5000 calories in a day, they will be fat and they won't like it once they get fat, or later when they have to lose the weight, that won't be fun either.Tell them if they starve themselves later when they're fat, they're killing themselves, organs fail if you diet too fast, and that won't be fun sitting in a hospital with failed organs. That's pretty simple right? Can kids comprehend this? Well, if they can't, you can until they do, and you can help them plan their meals out. Once they get used to this, they're on their way to a normal size, and normal levels of food intake each day. For sure though, telling them to "feel comforatable about food preparation", that isn't telling them anything useful at all. They can easily pile on pounds of meat, potatoes, gravy and such, and next up is fat city. It didn't help them at all.
47 YEARS AGO I ASKED MY 2 YEAR OLD WHAT HE WANTED FOR LUNCH. HE ASKED ME IF I HAD EGGS, YES I SAID, GOT MILK? YEP..GOT BREAD? YEP. OK I'LL HAVE FRENCH TOAST!! WHO EVER WAS IN THE KITCHEN WHEN I WAS COOKING I WOULD TELL THEM WHAT I WAS CHOPPING,BROILING ECT. THEY LEARNED TO COOK BY LISTENNG AND WATCHING AND THEN EATING IT. THAT 2 YEAR OLD IS THE BEST COOK I'VE EVER KNOWN.
Great post and series – can't get this topic off my mind lately.
It's lack of excercise that's making kids F A T! If one consumes more calories than one burns up, then one is going to put on weight. As my kids got on their feet to walk, they ran off their baby fat. All my children are slim & trim, & hopefully will live long & healthy lives. I tried to give them a good foundation in what's good for you & what isn't. We all need a "treat" now & then, even if it isn't exactly good for us. If we as adults set a good example to our children, then perhaps they will follow & continue to eat nutriciously. 'Course it gets harder & harder when big food genetically alters almost everything we consume, & chock it full of corn sweetners, which our bodies are not designed to use efficiently. Stay away from the "white", as in sugar, flour, salt, pasta, bread, rice, pasteries, empty calorie snack food. I found if I felt like I had to have a "sweet" after a meal, a small red apple would nix that "sweet" urge, & soo much better for a person.
My sons, now 24 and 27 were helping in the kitchen as soon as they could stand on a chair at the counter. Not only can they cook, but the know how to properly measure dry ingredients for baking. My eldest is teaching several of his friends to cook simple, nutritious meals. The only problem I see with this article is that the author thinks most of today's parents can cook and that's just not true. I'd love to home economics come back into schools, especially the cooking classes and those that deal with family resources such as finances.
This is timely and needed article. There are many talented mothers working to bring attention to this movement of cooking and eating with your children. Another unique and creative project is MA What's For Dinner? http://www.mawhatsfordinner.com
The website is a fun resource of stories and videos of a young mother raising three young boys while working to launch a national television series for moms and their kids. The cookbook is tremendously creative and fun for families and children.
The television series has national distribution through public television and will change the lives of many families upon launching. Enjoy the videos and share with your families as this is a great cause with positive social effects for all families.
Eat your chicken nuggets and get your condoms for free!!
Thanks Obama!
I started young with my 2 girls. Letting them hand you things when you need them or stir the bowl makes them happy and it lays the ground work later skills.
My Mom said that no mother should let their sons leave home without being able to cook and take care of them selves.
I have cooked for my family all my life, My wife doesn't mind cleaning up the kitchen and loves to brag to her friends that supper will be ready when she gets home. My son can cook very well but my Daughter inherited the passion for good food and is learning to be a great cook.
The payoff for teaching them to cook was all the hours we spent laughing and cooking together. Being a Daddy was the best job I could have ever had. Now I have to learn how to be a grandfather, I bet that will be fun too.
My mother never tried actively teaching my how to cook until I was nearly out of high school, but she loved experimenting with dishes & new recipies throughout my childhood (and not only did she work, but she was a single parent). Watching her tool around in the kitchen looked so fun that she didn't even have to ask me to come help her, I volunteered to break eggs and stir. The only time we ever ate out was when there weren't any leftovers & she was too tired to cook (rarely), or someone's birthday. And it did help my weight – I'd always been a pudgy kid, but my weight was always kept under control until our financial situation changed & we ended up living with relatives (everyone in our family are certified Junk Food Junkies – they can't cook anything that isn't fried or salty & take out fills the gap inbetween).
After living with them & eating out of the microwave for the past several years (we didn't even have a microwave before, just a toaster oven), we've both vowed "never again" – no more takeout, no more red meat, no fried, no more salty. To this day, I'm not the best chef in the world, but I can shop & cook to feed myself on a daily basis. I even have a list of recipies I'm detirmined to master before I strike out on my own, so that I'll NEVER have to go on the microwave diet again.
"we'll have retirement homes filled with heavy old people nibbling chicken nuggets"
Um, eating like that, they won't live long enough to see a retirement home from the inside. That's the point. Nutrition.
First, teach them how to grow and harvest their own food. Most of this supermarket crap is full of deadly chemicals.
Shut up.
Yeah, show them where their bacon comes from. Make them watch how they cut the throat on the pig and how the pig screams like a human when it's being killed.
I'm not joking.
Schools in other parts of the world include cooking classes. In UK and other parts of the world kids, girls and boys, in junior and high school take "cookery" classes along with their regular subjects. In the US the fast food culture is ingrained into children from the time they can stand up and there is little incentive to either understand or learn anything about what actually goes into food. The result is self evident: we now have childhood obesity and its corollary illnesses.
We used to have classes like that here in the states. It was called "HomeEc" (HomeEconomics). It was for the girls. Unfortunately, as with everything associated with girls here in the US, it was thrown out with the women's movement. Equality should have meant that HomeEc continued but including boys as well as girls. It's about teaching kids how to cook and eat, amongst other things necessary for day to day life without Mommy or daddy...
HomeEc was thrown out because school funding tanked. If they can barely afford to keep core content classes up & running, they're not even going to consider keeping subjects like HomeEc & Shop going.
Besides, it became a hotbed for litigation – parents today are so lawsuit-happy, most school shudder at the idea of hosting clases that hold even the faintest possibility of the students getting hurt (they could burn/cut/stab themselves cooking, stab their fingers through sewing, cut fingers off in Shop, etc.)
Flora they cut it out when they started paying the Superintendant millions per year.
I took HomeEc in junior high and I also took woodshop. Everyone had to take one or the other and as you'd guess mostly girls took HomeEc and mostly boys took woodshop. Should have made both a requirement. Along with learning cooking skills, I also learned some valuable tool skills. Schools need to teach more life skills.
Home Ec was a girls' class that was utterly useless. I taught myself to cook and sew long before the required class. The projects were simplistic and could have been taught to–and by–a monkey. While I disliked the sewing, my passion for cooking has remained. It's not the school's job to teach kids to cook. THat should come from the home, or from a basic recipe. If a kid can access the computer for FB, s/he can find a simple recipe and learn from that.
My children all know how to cook. DOn't waste precious class time or school funds on something non-academic or sports/music related.
I recognize Russian influence in the name, and can relate to it too. Disagree on the music statement, though... Music teaches discipline and hard work. Back in Russia, we barely had any music education at school (it was our parent's responsibility – among many others – to provide piano lessons). Both of my kids are playing instruments very well, and they love it, too, even though they are not planning to major in music later in college.
I agree that most of these skills should be taught at home- but you'll have to agree that mostly they aren't. Not every parent has the skills to pass to their children. I don't see any harm in spending one class in one grading period devoted to some life skills classes. Good life skills are never a waste of funding. Over paid administrators and tenured teachers who aren't worth the paper their paychecks are printed on are the biggest waste of funding. Let's get back to a more realistic, rounded education and performance based pay for teachers.
@futbol – Since you throw sports in there, I am willing to agree with you on the topic.
My daugther is 12 and cooks with me every night (and I too am a working mother). We got a few cookbooks from Cooking Light magazine, many of the recipes are 15 minutes or less to prepare. As she got older, the tasks I gave her got more advanced, she can now do pretty much anything I need her to. Yes it does teach math skills but a big one for me is organization. We read all the food lables of things we purchase that happen to be packaged (which is not too much at this point). She really enjoys cooking and even watches Food Network more than "kids" programming.
You can also look up your local grocery store or online website Printapons and find a list of the best deals, and the sites will match sale items with coupons.
By using coupons and samples from sites like "Get Official Samples" I started noticing my bill go down to around $70 with a 30 to 40 percent savings and I had more food than ever before
Yes! Thank You. I wish you could make this same plea to the Department of Education. Learning to feed oneself is as equally important as reading, writing and arithmetic.
Parents – please teach your children the value of putting healthy, whole foods into their bodies. Teach them to be critical consumers so they are not as easily swayed by marketing hype. If you can, take them to a farm or farmers market and let them taste fresh, organic foods. Teach them that food does not have to come from a box. Teach them to love themselves and that one way to show that love is through what we decide to eat each and every day.
http://lessonsfromtheendofamarriage.com
I taught myself to cook (bread!) when I was grounded over a spring break vacation. The joke was on them; they never had fresh bread before.
This article gives excellent advice. Just yesterday, I asked my 11-year old nephew how his mother made her beef & bean macaroni dish and when he said he didn't know, I asked, "Aren't you ever curious when your mom or dad cooks about how they do it?" When he said no, I told him he should be because his mother and I lost some of our mom's and dad's recipes when they passed away and are still trying to figure out exactly how they made them. My father made a dynamite German-style potato salad that, when I got him to make it for me for work pot-luck events, he had to make extra because everyone took some home. After he passed away, it took me over a year of experimenting before I finally reached a close approximation (http://www.food.com/recipe/lous-german-potato-salad-with-bacon-354723). Today I can't understand why I didn't make him write it down or, better yet, cook with him.
When my Grandma, and later my Mom, died my sisters and I wanted to make the dishes that they did, but we didn't get many recipes written down. I can cook a little and follow written instructions, but I have no idea how they made their delicious food, so I can't replicate it. It's one of my regrets.
I'm very, very glad that I know how to cook. I wasn't taught, per se...I just learned by observation and necessity. I save a ton of money by cooking my own food. On top of that it's much better for me and much better for the environment. It's not that hard, either...buy yourself a good, basic cookbook and it'll come to you. Joy of Cooking is a good one, and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking has a TON of instructions in basic skills. It's not all about elaborate recipes.
After cooking at home for the past few years, I discovered how horrible restaurant food is. When I get the bill I realize I could have prepared it twice as tasty at 1/4 the cost!
I have been teaching my son and my foreign exchanges to cook for awhile now. Just nice, basic, nutritional stuff. I also show them how to make homemade salad dressings, low on oil and with no sugar. I always teach them to have one protein and two vegetables. I avoid butter and use olive oil sparingly. I don't know if this will help them in the future or not, but it's fun. Tonight the kids made chili. I made the mistake of adding some peppers behind their backs. Their faces were priceless!
There is zero correlation between being a great cook and staying thin (if you doubt, just observe many top chefs). Yes, a diet of fast food is bad for you, but that doesn't mean that cooking at home will prevent obesity. That said, of course you should teach your kids to cook. Really cook, not open boxes and bags and nuke things. When my daughter went for her cooking badge in Girl Scouts I insisted she make muffins from scratch. Her friends made things from mixes because it was so much faster and easier. That may be true, but when you use a mix you don't learn much about cooking. Maybe we need to expand (bring back?) home economics as a subject, and give it some respect.
Sandy, I agree: I think teaching cooking in schools would be the smartest thing ever.
My daughter's middle school has a family and consumer science class that teachers a semester of cooking (as well as place settings, etiquette, and clean up) and a semester of sewing. The cooking class, unfortunately, was a little below her skill level, but her father is a chef and she's been cooking her own meals from scratch for years now. The class taught a lot of semi-homemade cooking, so it was disappointing for her.
You guys are too much.
Let me get this straight, this is the Time of "Anti Bully" rhetoric. Yet there's not a day that goes by, if the Liberals aren't bullying fat people and their folks for having them.
With what time?! Not every mother stays at home. I hate being made to feel guilty because I can't do it all.
On the weekends. Start with the basics, with you at their side. They will naturally start improvising and improving as they go. There's also no reason that, once they are confident in the kitchen and at an age where they don't need to be supervised, that they cannot cook simple meals for the family dinner during the week. Not only is it nice for you to come home to dinner already cooked, but it teaches them to be self-sufficient for their adult years when they will be on their own.
My mom was a working mother too. She came home exhausted every night. She still managed to teach us basic life skills. We didn't have the luxury of buying every meal.
I hear you! However, be glad you are working. I opted out of the workforce after 15 years (post college) to take care of my newborn son 3 1/2 years ago. It was career suicide. While I love being at home, it is not easy and I certainly did not do my professional career (six figures) any help. No one will hire me. It is very depressing. Ugh. I'm an older first time mom who can't really cook either -so my poor kid is in trouble. I need training myself!
We make one large batch item 12-15 servings (soup / stew / casserole) on sunday afternoons and freeze half in individual containers for lunches while eating the other half that week. It saves a ton of time on workdays to have a lunch made so that I can walk at lunch. Getting the kids to help though.. is still a chore :) They only want to make sweets.
I'm a working mom with a four year old. These tips work, its what we have been doing and our son is a really good eater.
My husband and I have been cooking with him since he was two (he sauted!). We do bigger dishes on the weekend and easier dishes on the weekdays. And you can cook very healthy things in under 30 minutes. Whole foods sells a variety of brown rice that cooks in 20 minutes. Roast some broccoli and salmon and you have dinner in under 30 minutes. Or buy regular brown rice and let it soak in some water in the fridge in the morning, when you get home that night and cook it, it will cook in half the time. We also started a little (4 x4) garden in the backyard where he grew carrots, turnips, beets, and lettuce. It worked- he ate EVERYTHING that came out of the garden. At the store, I let him pick the vegetables for our sides. We all talk and catch up as we make dinner, our son helps us cook and sets the table.
All it takes is a little planning ahead. Like other posters said, some meals can be cooked on a day off and frozen for later. Another option is using a slow cooker. Depending on the age of your kids, maybe all they can help do for now is pour broth over some chicken. Or maybe they're old enough to throw a couple of chicken breasts in the cooker with a can of condensed soup in the morning before they leave for school. Not every home cooked meal is going to be nutritionally ideal, but people tend to eat smaller portions at home, and the food they cook tends to be lower in sodium and fat than meals they eat at restaurants. No one (or at least no one who's sane) is trying to say you should be Supermom, working full time, keeping your house spotless, and cooking three-course meals with your kids. Pick your battles. Once your kids have a basic understanding of how things work in the kitchen, you'll be able to work together to create more complicated, and hopefully healthier meals.
When my kids were young, we always cooked neat stuff. My wife had so many good traditional Spanish recipes and included the kids in the mass production of Pastilles, roasts, fried food, barbeque, savory salads and more.
Now I live with my youngest daughter and she is a great cook and loves it.
She realizes that cooking is part art and part science. She knows how to substitute ingredients and even replace ingredients to make the recipes she cooks even better. She’s a photographer, so she often elaborately plates and then photographs her creations.
If you know the basic terms of cooking, you can find enticing recipes on the Internet and have a lot of cooking fun. Of course, there are some disasters, but they are usually funny, teach a lesson and lead to a better understanding of what works and what doesn't
When we cook from fresh, we lose weight and have control of what we eat.
Home cooking is king, and it often takes less time that placing a delivery order and waiting for delivery or schlepping to the nearest fast food joint.
Learn to cook. If you can read you can cook!
Best regards, Nigel & Jennifer
My mom did not cook very well and our family was very poor when we were children. I and my one brother and several sisters learned to cook in home economics classes at school. We learned about nutrition and how to balance a budget and how to sew and so many other things- even child care. Both my son and daughter are good cooks, they learned from me and also had home ec classes, but unfortunately I think they were the last children to have home ec. I think boys and girls should BOTH have home economics classes!
Absolutely! Both boys and girls should not only be in home-ec classes, but shop as well. There's no reason that girls cannot learn how to use tools in the shop safely and how to build or maintain things. It will set them up for life as an adult, not having to rely on fast-food or microwaed dinners, or calling maintenance to change a light bulb.
I'm with you! Men need these basic skills too. But considering the fact that schools can barely provide basic reading and math classes, I don't have much hope for the creative stuff.
Teaching my kids to cook assumes I know how to cook myself – which i don't. And to boot,I hate cooking. We get by, and we don't eat out much, but it's not pretty.....
You can remedy not knowing how to cook. If you can read, you can cook. Buy a cookbook, start making 1 new recipe per week.
Something that will make cooking far less frustrating: get GOOD knives, at least one. All you really need is a nice chef's knife. Try Shun or Wusthof brand; employees at a cooking store like WIilliams Sonoma can help you out. Yes, it will be over $100 for 1 knife, but it's worth it.
No problem. You can empower yourself by embracing the transparency of the idea that parents do the grocery shopping, hence control what their kids eat at home. And while teaching them about sustainability you can limit the time they spend in front of the tube, and send them out of the house.
Go to a weekend cooking class and bring the kids along. You'll all learn together, and it will make the class a lot more fun.
I'm the same way. I never learned how to cook and I'm really trying -but don't enjoy it at all and can't do basic things. I can follow big recipes, but if you'd ask me to make a chicken and gravy or a pot roast, I'm clueless.
.My wife is a great cook now and at times really enjoys it, but that was not always true. I was always the cook for my family and I loved it. Maybe you can trade some other chores with your husband and he can be the cook
I love this! I was just talking about baking with kids as a means to engage them in healthy eating this week - http://mommadefoods.com/news-events/news.asp Mom Made Foods believes strongly in modeling healthy eating as a primary method for teaching kids to become healthy eaters themselves. By cooking with our kids, we showing them to preparing our meals is important, worthy of our time, and it is fun! While Mom Made is making prepared meals and snacks for kids, we do so in a healthy way and to be used as a compliment to healthy homemade meals. Good work on this article, and the whole series. I look forward to reading more. Jennifer
My mother taught me how to cook by having me measure ingredients for her, stir things, and as I got older chop veggies, and make side dishes and desserts. Now I can make a healthy meal in under an hour. My husband was never allowed in the kitchen. Even if he had been, his mother wouldn't have taught him anything because everything she cooks comes out of a box. I've had fun introducing my husband to new fruits, veggies, and dishes that he's never tasted. Recently my aunt gave me a binder full of my grandmother's recipes in her own handwriting. I look forward to trying them out. But they will have to be in moderation as the main ingredients in most of them involve shortening and whole lot of sugar or butter or molasses. My husbands extended family is always complimenting me on my cooking. I tell them following a recipe is as easy as following the directions on a hamburger helper box but they just think I'm crazy. :)
I do the same thing with my kids. My 9 year old loves to crack eggs, help measure and add ingredients, run the mixer, etc. He also peels carrots and potatoes for me. When my nieces came to live with me at 12 from a neglectful situation, they knew nothing about cooking. They were twins and liked to hang around with me so I put them to "work" in the kitchen. They became excellent sous chefs, helped keep dishes washed and plan recipes. One decided she wanted to learn to decorate cakes, so we put her in a Wilton class at Michael's and she loved it. They are in college now and one of them is pursuing food science and culinary studes with the goal of being a pastry chef. My 15 year old son can prepare simple meals for himself too. My mother was a good cook but never allowed us in the kitchen to learn, she tried to take over the carrot peeling from my son recently and I'm like, he can do it, I'll wait. She is largely annoyed that not only am I a pretty good cook, my repertoire is much more varied than hers simply due to having lived in many different areas of the country and asking friends for recipes or how to make things I liked. I try new dishes all the time and agree that following a recipe isn't hard. It just takes some practice.
Lucky for your nieces that they had such a great aunt!
Bravo! This is a wonderful article and gives voice to one of my greatest passions; getting kids in the kitchen! My mother started with me when I was 3 years old – my earliest cooking memory. She instructed me to "stir away from your body little Anna". Her teaching, my experience as a Chef, and the challenges and successes of my clients inspired me to found http://www.idealmealz.com to get families back to the dinner table.
I am amazed at the amount of people today that cant even boil an egg much less bake a cake. I asked one once how they managed to eat ? The answer was frozen dinners or go out .
Both my sons are good cooks , one is now a chef . There is no excuse for not teaching kids to cook. They have to spend their whole lives eating , both male and female . It is a basic skill to survive .
Reblogged this on Finding The Golden Path and commented:
It's never too early to instill healthy habits! Empower your family, friends, and children by educating them on nutritious foods and allow them to live a lifestyle filled with goodness. Uncertain about where to start? Contact me, Alex, about free vegetarian cooking classes.
Doing a little free advertising are you?
My wife and I just saw an add for chicken nuggets on tv when it happened to be on one night. It asked you to send in a pic of your kids enjoying the nuggets and the pic might be used for their advertisement. We debated sending in a pic of our daughter eating my wifes grandma's recipe for Sauerbraten in spite. Our daughter never eats those frozen 5 min garbage dinners and rarely complains when something new is put in front of her. She prefers to eat her vegetables first. Why you might ask is she not picky, because we don't let her be, too many parents take the easy way out just to make their lives easier, what a shame. She's only 2.5 years old, not old enough to learn how to cook but she is there with us at times helping out when she can.......especially in my wifes garden where we grow our own food just like more people need to do.
Just wait till she is 4 or 5 before congratulating yourself...
True. There is a lot of peer pressure in social situations.
Exactly! My son and I garden together. We started when he was 2, he will soon be 5 and he loves working in the garden! We started small and have been growing our garden every year. Even though we both work, my husband and I make it a priority to always have a home-cooked meal and to eat dinner together as a family. And he STILL eats everything on his plate, starting with the veggies! It takes planning and time but it is worth it.
I've been involving my 17-month old son in the kitchen since he was about a year old. If I make a batch of banana bread, I give him a bowl of bananas and a potato masher and let him go to town. Making a graham cracker crust? Put the graham crackers in a zip-top bag, give him something to smash it with, and let him have fun with it. He loves to press the button on the salad spinner to make it go. I can hold him in my arms and let him stir the soup I'm making (carefully, of course!). He LOVES to help out in the kitchen.
With a little supervision and some creativity, even toddlers can help out.
I applaud you on teaching your son to cook. My Mom never taught me how to cook, which I regret to this starving day. But once when I was about 5 years old my Mom did tell me to stir the gravy on the stove. I had to stand on a step stool to reach the stove. I stirred the gravy, too hard, it splashed out of the pan all down my front; leaving 2nd degree burns over most of my chest and stomach. ...conclusion__________________
Oh my -why a mother would have her 5 year old at the stove stirring gravy is beyond me. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
Ditto here. My mom fed us but she was not a good cook. Once she had me standing on a step stool over a pan of frying bacon so I could turn it. Got splashed in the face with hot grease. Like I said my mom was clueless in the kitchen. I learned to cook in college thanks to some guys (yup guys) who lived in the same house with me who's moms had taught them how to cook. I also know how to read pretty well (;-)) so recipes are not intimidating and if I have a great meal/dish at a friends house I always ask for the recipe.
In between the 6th & 7th grade my mother had to go to work. She turned over the weekday evening meals to me. I grabbed her very old cookbook and began going through the book and learned to cook from that and watching my father cook (who was a much better cook than my mother). I learned a lot through trial and error, but I also learned about how to cook tasty, nutritious inexpensive meals. We had to eat healthy meals because my father was a diabetic. I went shopping with my parents and learned how to shop for healthy food while stretching a tight budget. By the time I graduated from high school I loved to cook for people and could bake a souffle as well as traditional meals. Teach your children when they're young and they will learn so much more than just the basics; if you handle the teaching appropriately as you will also develop a wonderful relationship with your children. (By the way my brother also learned to be a very good cook!)
This is great! I work as a Registered Dietitian in corporate wellness and have put on numerous kids cooking classes when parents bring their kids to work.. The kids love it and they are so proud of the skills they learn and the food they prepare!
My partner and I often babysit my niece and my nephews, and one of the activities we all do together is meal preparation. We take them to the market, we buy fresh fruits and veggies, lean meats, whole grain breads. We come home and we all divide the tasks equally (they of course have age-appropriate tasks that keeps their fingers out of harm's way). They even love to use the juicer and make real juice. My brother and his wife somewhat "jokingly" got on our case about it because now the kids want to help cook at home and one of my nephews refused to eat a happy meal once. I think the bad-for-you foods are okay in moderation (such as a slice of chocolate cake), as long as what's consistent and daily are foods that are healthy.
It is amazing how it took journalists 2 years to figure this out and that the only true solution to Childhood Obesity is when parents choose healthful affordable homemade foods over that of the prepackaged crap. However as one who did begin baking at the age of 3-4, I thank goodness for that Easy Bake Oven to learn from and from the observations of watching my mom and family members cook.
Yet with this said--WHY would anyone with any common sense teach a little kid who can barely read write and calulate arithematic to become a CHEF! And I say this as a Culinary Pro-–Healthful home cooking is sustainability-teaching little kids how to be a CHEF is only for sustinence of the Culinary world–not sustinence for LIFE!
For parents wishing to help prevent or overcome child obesity please see Lovemorefeedless.com
Huh?????
I saw nothing in the article about having a child become a chef. Where did that particular rant come from?
What in the world are you smoking?
Cooking at home is so much less expensive and more nutritous than eating out. Cook a roast, and you have leftovers for days. Get out the crock pot and dinner is waiting when you get home. Vegetables like broccolli florets come pre-washed and pre-cut. People ask how I stay so thin (I'm 52, 5'9", and 125). I don't eat pizza, french fries, soda, beans, rice, potatoes and tortillas. I eat meat, vegetables, eggs, butter, and fruit for dessert. I admit that other stuff is good, but I love my figure and I love that the doctor told me I have the blood pressure of a 16-year-old.
Carolyn, I feel for you. Sure being and eating healthy is good yet it sounds as if you are missing out on some wonderful foods and flavors.
Eating foods in moderation as well as for flavor, health, enjoyment and variety is much healthier than picking over what you think you should and should not be eating. Taste and if you don't kile then don't eat it, but don't forfeit flavors and healthful elements because the media tells you not too!
She is not missing out on anything if this is the way she chooses to eat. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone views food and eating as a form of entertainment. It's just fuel that you need to in order to stay alive. To each his own!
You are so right! No grains, sugars for me as well. My food consists of meat, eggs, veggies, butter. Besides a weight loss, my diet also took care of every simgle health issue+no pre-menopause symptoms at all.
I tough my son to cook simple things, now in college he spends less on his paleo-style diet than other kids on a cafeteria food.
That's awesome that your young one is eating Paleo style! That's my preferred form of eating too. In fact I just published a book titled The Paleo Diet, Cook Like a Caveman. It's been well received and I hope it helps folks eat healthier. http://chefanna.net/Chef_Anna/Books/Entries/2012/1/10_The_Paleo_Diet_Book.html
Maybe you can throw some credit my way while you're back patting.
5'9 and 125...that sounds VERY thin...
Teach your kids how to cook? The parents have to know how first. Half the parents today only experience with cooking is that they sometimes see it from the drive thru window.
You hit the nail right on the head.
I know, another craft that has gone to mechanically processed everything. The unfortunately sugar, salt, and fats are king in fast food.
Yes Michael,
Most fast Foods are loaded with these ingredients but then again so is the ridiculous ease of prepackaged and previously prepared foods! And when these foods are are the primary foods in the home and paired/combined with computer tasks and video games children are more likely to get FAT.
Actually in reality in the past 15 or so years more and more prepackaged foods have cheaply become available in addition to the development and preference for video games.When such sedentary habits are combined on a regular basis (several times per week) obesity can result. And because too many professionals consider child obesity a medicinal nutritional issue the true needs are not being met. Child obesity grows into a medicinal disorder, and until you teach and help a child/family get over unhealthy habits and choices the introduction of nutritional info and the recommendations to eat this not that are heard but primarily ignored.
Additionally with the amount and cost of publishing masses of workbooks and pamphlets sure healthy kids/families are getting healthier-yet in areas lacking access to a grocery store (Produce Desert) and fresh foods/ingredients poor food choices result.
Randi, you have an odd way of expressing yourself. It's difficult to understand what your point is.
It's a challenge for sure. That's why I created http://www.idealmealz.com to help folks step by step cook at home, save time and save money. The idea is shop once each month, preassemble meals and store them in the freezer for cooking later. Get the kids involved and learn with them, if that may be the case.
I don't think parents should try to push their kids to learn how to cook but they should show them how its done. My mother use to have me talk to her while she was cooking and once in a while help her out. I learned so much just by hanging around my mom while she was cooking!
True, but there are some things that are better learned by doing and feeling. You can describe it, but you'll know it a whole lot better by getting your hands in and dirty. :-)
Pedantic much, folks? Point is: If women want men to help with routine chores traditionally considered 'female' then they've got to respond in kind.
No one is being pedantic and it looks like the responders here are copping to taking on non-traditional previously gender-based tasks. Man do you have alot to learn about reading comprehension.
What do you mean? Do you mean by cutting the lawn (which I do, not him)? Taking out the garbage (which again I do, not him)? What exactly should I expect because I already do everything there is to do in our house (including make twice what he does). Jerks like you are why men think it's okay to be lazy sponges.
Well said!!!
Amen, Sister! My ex knew how to cook, chose not to. Literally, we came home from the church and because I was still in my nice dress I asked him to rinse out the champagne glasses, and he said "I don't have to do dishes any more, I have a wife to do that now." Quite simply, I stood my ground on "traditionally male" chores like taking out the trash - if he wasn't going to wash dishes, because that's "women's work", then I wasn't going to do anything that was traditionally male. Period.
As a single mom of two boys, I have been teaching them age appropriate self-sufficiency in the kitchen since they could walk. Regular Saturday morning trips to the farmer's market, fresh fruit at eye level on counters or in the fridge, small pitchers filled partially with juice or milk, dry cereal, etc. within little arms reach. As they got old enough to use the stove with supervision, they were responsible for a dinner a week - they would determine the menu with me, making sure to hit all the food groups, then we would pick up the ingredients in our weekly shopping and we all cooked together on their night. We've been able to modify some dishes to pretty quick and easy recipes over the years. They've also learned the value of prep work and cooking in advance over the weekend. Now that the boys are teens, their skills are pretty advanced and they take on meals regularly without prodding! My fifteen year old took on this year's holiday meal - it was hot, ready and delicious when family walked thru the door for Christmas dinner!
It is better to avoid such garbage as breakfast cereals, however I understand it can be very convenient . It is better to have an egg-based breakfast.
What are you talking about? There are plenty of healthy cereal options available.
I was referring to whole grain options - not sugar based cereals. There are plenty of options available for a healthy breakfast, traditional or non-traditional. For a two and three year old, healthy cereal is an option that they can prepare for themselves periodically.
If you're carb intolerant like I am, processed cereals are the worst breakfast foods you can eat. Nothing on the grocery store shelves has less than 25gms total carbs. I know because my husband & I spent time reading all the boxes one Sunday. Yep. All.the.boxes. The 5 or 6 grams of protein that only some cereals contain don't compensate for the carb load – at least not for my metabolism. While I won't speak for anyone else, I wouldn't call it garbage.
I am talking about any cereals being less valuable as a food source (to put it mildly) compare to any egg-based food preparation. It is a national maddens to rely on expensive boxes of highly processed grains as a breakfast food. It is a horrible legacy of that nut Kellogg. If you want to eat grains in the morning, make yourself a sandwich. At least it will be lower in sugar most of the time, with more protein and resemble more some real food.
Galina, while I agree that eggs are a great protein source to start your day off well...there are good cereal options out there. Low calories, low cholesterol, whole grain.
There's a lot more out there now than Frosted mini wheats and Captain Crunch.
Cereal is a highly processed food from a box with a high profit margin. A complete rip-off. It represents all what is opposite to the home-cooked meals . More "healthy" cereals ofter contain some artificially added fiber which is causing stomach distress in some people and prevents the absorptions of nutrients. Even when it is low in sugar, it is still too much carbs for the morning. I eat a low-carbohydrate food, but not other members of my family. If my husband wants to eat something grained based, I give them something like a coked buckwheat with some milk or a butter.
You go, cowx10! You deserve props, not some nitpicky rant about cereal.
None of us know all the answers or what suits everyone best–thinking you do only betrays your ignorance and arrogance (two things that often go hand in hand, in my experience).
My husband (who actually cooks most of our dinners) and I both cook well enough to follow recipes and make some pretty tasty options, and we're both really looking forward to teaching our son how to cook once he's old enough. I'm also a very good baker, and I plan on passing all of the recipes and tricks my mother taught me onto my son.
Even if all you can cook are a few simple recipes (my father's cooking skill is limited to sandwiches, burgers, slop on shingles and pork 'n beans), you should push to at least be able to do that. There's no excuse, regardless of sex, to being worthless in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where people are shown on a daily basis how hard or time consuming it is to cook a meal. Try to remember who such erroneous thinking benefits! (Hint – it isn't you or your family.) Everyone should be comfortable in the kitchen, and kids should definitely know how to provide for themselves before they finish high school.
Nearly all meals can be done in an hour or less. Preparing real food (as in real vegetables, or working with real meat, as opposed to mixes and cans and prepared foods) just isn't difficult by any stretch of the imagination and requires little more than a sharp knife and maybe a vegetable peeler, a wooden spoon and the right sized pot, pan, or baking dish. Probably the hardest thing is remembering to take the meat out of the freezer in the morning.
I agree Katie, the problem is not everyone has time to go home and cook a meal for their family. You have many mom and dads who are so wrapped up working overtime hours, getting stuck in traffic, etc. they have no time to make meals at home. After work, they have to rush home to get the kids off to their events: sporting, dancing, or whatever they are involved in. My event growing up was come home and first do my homework, then I had house chores to do. If I had time before dinner, I hung out with friends. We were the "Cleaver" family, mom stayed home and dad worked. Mom made dinner and we sat at the table and ate, talked about school, etc. These days both parents have to work to support the family, going to McDonald's, etc. is a quick pitstop.
One word -CROCKPOT
It solves all of lifes problems
@daniela
Gonna disagree on that one. more than 75% of the crockpot recipes I have ever seen are about throwing a nasty can of soup or a box of processed garbage over a random piece of meat or poultry and wasting power for an entire day to heat up something that could be cooked in under 20 minutes on a stove. Teaching kids to eat processed garbage is not going to help them in the long run. It does not take much time and energy to place some chicken in a baking dish and spice it before baking it for an hour while you are off doing something else. If you want a sauce, learn to make your own–they taste better and they are better for you than a can of salty trans fat soup and they take MINUTES. We are not talking about hours of prep. If you are actually using a crockpot for slow-cooking something that BENEFITS from slow cooking (e.g. a nice piece of pork shoulder or a nice roast), then bravo, but in my experience the way most people use the things is just wrong on so many levels.
Agree Katie. I worked in a corporate job for 20+ years and traveled the world. I am a mother of two and I struggled to cook at home. When I changed careers I decided to help people who struggled like I did and founded Ideal Mealz (www.idealmealz.com) which is an approach I used to shopping and preassembling meals once each month. I involved my children in the menu development, kitchen cleaning, shopping and meal assembly. The remainder of the month all I had to do was remember to pull the pre-labeled assembled meals from the freezer and place them in the fridge the night before cooking. Cooking the meal takes about 10-15 minutes because all of the decisions, slicing, dicing and chopping are already complete. And I gained the added benefit of buying larger quantities of food and saving money because I used them across menu and threw nothing away. Whereas before I three away about 1/3 of what I purchased (when I cooked). Check out ww.idealmealz.com if you or someone you know is struggling like I was.
It is hard, and time consuming and to me, a waste of time. It is also, to me much more expensive. I never learned to cook, I've lived in my apartment 15 years and never cleaned the oven. When you live by yourself, cooking is nothing but a waste of time and effort, and does nothing but make a big mess
It takes a lot of patience to teach kids to cook but it is worth it!! Even tots can participate, stirring, putting things in a bowl or tossing a salad. I had salads tossed everywhere ! My son was so busy, I had to involve him in the cooking process to keep his hands and mind occupied and out of trouble.
As mentioned the kitchen is a great laboratory for teaching math, fractions, following directions and even chemistry! The bonus is self sufficiency, learning about nutritious food and staying on a budget. When he got to college he was shocked at how inept his roommates were in the kitchen.
All my kids can cook. It can be a family bonding experience. As a parent it is a very important thing to teach your kids!
I was forced to help my mom cook dinner every night and I hated it. She never made my brother do it. Stereotypical. Anyhow, it wasn't until I left home that I understood the value of knowing how to cook and handle food. I was cooking with a friend and she asked me how to peel garlic! Another time my roommate's boyfriend thought it was "cool and awesome" I knew how to peel and devein shrimp (the most tedious task in the world, in my opinion).
I make it a point to have my son help me in the kitchen. No way am I going to send him out into the world not knowing how to peel garlic!
Good for you!!! Both my college age sons are good cooks and know how to eat healthy. They prepare meals at home and rarely eat out. Both know how to peel garlic, cut up a whole chicken, devein shrimp, bake from scratch, grow vegetables, roast a turkey, work magic on a grill, follow a recipe and aren't afraid to experiment or try new foods and herbs. Skills that will last a lifetime.
Ditto and ditto, Darlene. I was cooking full dinners by myself at age eight, but my brother never set foot in the kitchen. I'm grateful that I know how to cook while most of my peers are completely intimidated by a kitchen, but it did take being out of my parents' house for several years before I was willing to cook again.
Nothing at all wrong with guys learning to cook. Mom made sure my brother could cook just as she taught me to cook. Dad also made sure to teach us both in the shop and yard. I remember my brother was so proud one day after making an apple pie from scratch that didn't drip – both mom and I looked at each other and said at the same time "you didn't fill it enough". :-)
My mom thought it would be a crime to send a son out into the world without knowing how to cook and clean.
Love this idea. It's so important for children to understand how to provide healthy meals for themselves. It may be easier to do it for them now, but they'll lack the skills to keep it up later in life.
Sara from http://www.losingtogether.com
My theory is that if you keep feeding a child real food (which usually comes out a home kitchen), they will eventually realize how bad most fast food and packaged things taste. That's what happened to me, at least.
me too!
Not only is it important to teach them how to cook... but also how to clean the kitchen afterward!
My mother in law never taught her children either of these things. Im not stuck with a husband (who I love very much) who never does either without pushing.
I think that whoever doesn't cook should be the one to clean.
Clean what? If you don't waste time cooking, you don't waste time cleaning either
In the past I would stop to help a lady driver who had a flat tire on her car. Today, now that our ladies have claimed equality with men, (some don't even want a man to open a door for them,) I now cheerfully wave at a lady and pass by when I see one with a flat tire.
I just spent the morning making oatmeal raisin cookies with my 4yo. All he could do was dump the measuring cups after I filled them with ingredients but he was thrilled with himself.
Bravo! By teaching your children to cook you are teaching them that there is something better to eat than fast food. Fast food is all some kids know. My kids tell me their friends eat pizza 3-4 nights per week. If you don't know how to cook, grab a few cookbooks and learn right along with your kids. Cooking is a bond that you will share forever.
What's wrong with cooking pizza? My bf and I make one that's whole wheat crust and filled with veggies. Not unhealthy at all. Kids would love to help and make their own little pizzas with any number of healthy toppings.
Good information! My parents (both) taught me how to cook – and it's just as important for Dad to get involved so the boys know that it is THEIR responsibility too. Even in this day and age we are so focused on women doing all the cooking, which leads to young men eating more junk food than young women.
My husband had deadbeat parents who never cooked, and never taught him how to cook. Later in life, after years of living off of fast food, he started watching cooking shows which inspired him to learn how to cook. Now he's an expert in the kitchen, and he has so much fun with it. You're never to old to start from scratch.
"Even in this day and age we are so focused on women doing all the cooking ... "
Really? When my back was turned, did you sneak into my Tardis and take a trip back to 1950?
That's just my point. We should be over those social stereotypes from the 1950's, but we aren't. Just look at cook books in a book shop – they almost always have women on the covers. Men have a defined place in the world of professional cooking, as chefs in classy restaurants, but in the home the stereotype of "mom making the meals" is still alive and well. I know too many families who teach their daughters to cook and not their sons, and it makes me mad.
Having grown up in the 40's and 50's, I must respond. I was raised by a wonderful Mother with no help from anyone. We were poor as dirt, but with a lot of hard work, became middle class. Back then it was considered a disgrace to accept any kind of welfare. So, at around 10 years old I was taught the wonderful art of doing dishes. Got lazy once and had to rewash all the dishes in all the cupboards. Never did that again. At around 13 I was then given primers on cooking. Mother's reasoning was really pretty simple. There would come a time that I would probably have to cook and most probably other women won't love me as much as she did. Yes, there are many of we men out here that can cook and do.
Men will start cooking and cleaning more in the kitchen when women start changing the oil in the vehicles and cleaning the leaves out of the gutters. After all, it's THEIR responsibility too.
Don't forget about putting the seat up for us for a change, too.
Done. I also know how to change a tire, use power tools, and detail my car. I love how to compare things that happen maybe 2 or 3 times a year to a DAILY activity.
First off, most men today don't change their own oil. Secondly, I do tons of yard work and when I look around my neighborhood I see lots of ladies out mowing lawns and clearing gutters. My husband doesn't even begin to know how to do lots of that stuff, he grew up in the city. I'm the one that fixes everything, so thank god he can at least cook.
Sadly I dont see most men changing oil or cleaning gutters either. The car goes to the oil change place and a person is hired to clean the gutters or gutterguards are on or its just not done. The house I bought had both a man and woman as previous owners and the gutters were overflowing with leaves. Pretty simple...you dont cook you dont eat.
lol@JethroTull. That's what mechanics are for. My boyfriend wouldn't know how to change the oil in our car, but he can make a killer meal in the kitchen. (He is a red seal chef) ... and I'd reckon that being able to cook nutritious meals and feed hungry children is far more important than being able to do car maintenance. Although it does help to know a thing or two about cars, but its certainly not manditory. Health is.
Cooking and cleaning? Well, that's what maids and cooks are for. Cars not mandatory? Well, OK then. Try getting along in this world without one for long and see what happens.
more lol@Jethro
It's still a terrible comparison. As someone pointed out above, cooking is something that is needed every day, car maintenance is not. And as a man who can do both, if I had to make a choice I would rather do the cooking myself and pay a mechanic to deal with my car than the alternative (plus it's considerably cheaper, even if you're paying an illegal Hispanic maid to do all your cooking...)
If Blinky is reading these responses, that's just my point. S/he seems to be in some kind of timeloop. I'm sure I can fix that with the sonic screwdriver.
Yes, please! I made a lot of money in college cooking for girls who never learned to cook when they wanted to impress their boyfriends with a homemade meal. Most of them couldn't even figure out how to heat a can of peas when they missed dinner at the dining hall.
Bravo! Cooking has been displayed on television as a preserve of the very talented professional, when there's this giant space between "Top Chef" and "can't boil water" where the rest of us dwell. I love teaching my kids to cook. They get excited about things like whisking and pouring, and seeing their efforts create something useful is invaluable. Even if I didn't enjoy it, I'd do it anyway because preparing meals is still a life skill kids need to learn. And not that "rolled in powdered bacon and sauteed in duck fat" cooking they show on TV (although that sounds really good). A good cook is by definition a good nutritionist.
I can't agree with this article more. I will marry the man of my dreams in a couple of months and through the years I have known how different our palattes are – he likes plain and simple chicken and pasta and I'll eat ANYTHING – the more spice, the better. It's been hard living together this past year trying to accomodate his likes (ok, to my palette, BLAND) likings and to ensure my kids don't lose what we've grown to love the past 5 years "on our own": spicy, seafood, clams on the grill, stuffed quohoags, etc. My sweetie realizes that I like the "cook all day, spicy chili" (vs. his "veggie" make in 20 minutes chili) and that I won't give up my (nor my kids heritage) preferences to keep what I think is a varied menu for my kids. They know that when we cook, some days it's a bit more "tame" than what we are used to, but others are a "let's go for it" nights. They both love to help me in the kitchen – we cook, turn up the tunes and dance away while the food is cooking up. They have also realized that both myself and their stepdad-to-be have different tastes but both are healthy and happy and we both agree that if one doesn't llike the options given, there are always other options (without being a short order cook and making 4 different meals – 2 options are the limit!). All are learning likes/dislikes along with what is nice familty time in learning the best/more healthy otions for our meals. Our mottos is: everything in moderation – if you don't deny a little bit-o-sweet at the end of a meal, you won't be tempted to go overboard later on. My mom taught us this 40 years ago while we cooked with her and we all grew up to be happy, well adjusted adults (with NO weight issues whatsoever).