Healthy Cooking for Kids

Are you actively teaching healthy cooking for kids and meal planning? Kids love to help out, but we squelch this attitude from them because it is such a hassle. We can do life much quicker by ourselves!

Slow down and teach your kids the healthy diet habits of healthy cooking and meal planning. You might be surprised at the healthy choices they will learn to love, because they were involved!

Some of the Lifestyle Solutions that you can teach your kids will be:

• Which foods are healthy and real, and which foods are processed and junky!

• Creativity. Kids love choosing new fruits and veggies to try, finding ways to prepare them, or new recipes to try.

• Meal planning, and what makes a complete meal.

• How to be a great shopper, (See my Healthy Grocery List), and how to look for the best prices.

• How to look at the store ads each week, and buy foods cheaply.

• How to plan a budget.

• The nutrients that are in their food choices.

• Healthy foods taste great, if you cook them right! Boiled okra can never taste great! Yes, Mom that is directed right at you!

• Kitchen safety rules like: how to hold a knife and chop, how to use potholders, and what to do when you cut yourself, or burn yourself. They must be prepared, because they will nearly cut their fingers off, when you are not home, of course!

• How to clean up after themselves. If they cook it, they must clean it. They will learn to be less messy, if they have to clean it up.

• Math concepts like counting, fractions, doubling, measuring, and timing.

• Foods from other cultures, if you cook ethnic. You could also teach a bit about different countries or look up your country on a map.

• English skills of reading, asking questions, conversational skills, sequencing when following recipes, and story-telling when they explain to everyone what they did to make the fabulous meal!

• Independence, and that they can learn to do many things on their own.

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There are many things that you can teach your kids in the process of cooking and meal planning. For me, the memories that you are making, are the number one reason for doing things together, plus it is amazing that when you work together, the lines of communication seem to open up. Kids love time devoted to them!