Kids Kitchen

I'm a Mom who believes there will be rewards if I teach my kids to cook at an early age. However, sometimes the thought of cooking with my three kids is way more fun than the actual cooking with my kids!!! The extra patience required, the equal dividing of all the tasks, the extra mess (flour flies!) and the extra time . . .and yet somehow there is no extra help with the dishes !!! But getting your kids into the kitchen is an important part of raising healthy kids.

Our children took pride in our garden, and worked alongside us throughout the whole process from seed to plant to dining room table. They helped weed and picked daily what we would have for dinner that week. The best is when we are out in the yard playing and the kids run over to their vegetable garden and eat acherry tomato. Or better yet pull a carrot fresh from the ground, wipe the dirt on their shirt and munch away!

Heather watched her picky eater mow through plate after plate of food in South America where options were mostly very good steak, pizza and salad so it was easy to shrug it off. In China, there would be only fried noodles mixed with vegetables and in a sauce. He ate it. Steamed dumplings with surprise fillings? Ate that too. He did it consistently, constantly and without any of our prodding. The question is: Why now?

Getting your kids involved in preparing meals is a fantastic way to develop healthy eating habits. Kids are far more likely to dig into a new dish if they helped prepare it! There are lots of things even very young children can do in the kitchen. Toddlers can wash and rip lettuce, preschoolers can measure and stir, and older kids can find recipes and help create meals.

Would you believe the Halloween candy my kids collected almost 2 months ago still sits uneaten in our cupboards? Not checked, not opened, and without disappointment, in the top of the pantry still! I have been the worst of all, sneaking a mini chocolate bar here and there! So how did we get 3 wee ones aged 5, 3 and 2 to NOT miss eating the bag of candy they worked so hard for on Halloween?

I’m sure you’ve already got this drilled into your head; breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s been the slogan of schools, nutritionists and weight loss coaches for ages. We already know that people who consume a healthy breakfast tend to consume less calories throughout the day and have a higher metabolism. But what about kids?

Healthy school lunches are important at our house so every couple of weeks I make a batch of Whole Wheat, Flax, Carrot, Zucchini & Apple mini muffins that I freeze and pull out each day to include for their school snack. The kids love helping and there are so many steps they can do! Follow our recipe even the kids will love.