Get kids cooking... or growing!

We’ve talked about the importance of teaching children to cook before, but I thought that it would be worth having another look at. Some of you may be well aware of the furore over Martha Payne and her blog; NeverSeconds. On this blog, nine-year-old Martha would take pictures of her rather depressing school dinner each day and give it a rating out of 10. While all the money raised from the blog was going to a charity called Mary’s Meals, Martha was told to shut down the blog by her head teacher after it started getting national attention. Luckily, Argyll and Bute Council decided to overturn the decision and allowed Martha to continue with her blog. Even now, she’s still getting plenty of visits every day and has raised over £100,000 for Mary’s Meals, which has built a kitchen and paid for lunch for a school in Malawi for a whole year. What’s interesting about this story is that it shows how children are interacting with their food these days. As we mentioned in our last blog on the topic, campaigns from Jamie Oliver have gone a long way to helping. I also think that the internet, with blogs and YouTube, are giving children a voice and a way to speak their mind. If your children have expressed an interest in the food they eat; perhaps through wanting to grow or cook it themselves, then encourage them! If you like to have your meals for the week all planned out, you could ask your children to help you decide what to eat or to find fun new recipes. Then, when it comes to preparing a meal, task younger children with easier jobs like chopping or washing vegetables. Baking is always a firm favourite with children of any age and is a good way to get more reluctant chefs involved. The Cooking Club for Kids have a fantastic range of fun baking supplies that makes creating tasty treats much easier. Another way to get children thinking about food is teaching them where it comes from. Growing a couple of varieties of fruit and veg is cheap, easy and you don’t need much space. It’s also a good way to help children learn to be responsible for something. Head over to the Canova brand page for some great garden kits to get you started. Are your kids budding chefs or do they have green fingers? Be sure to let us know; we’d love to see pictures of their creations or their vegetable gardens! As always, you can leave a comment below or chat to us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!