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Teach Your Children the Lost Art of Cooking

By Lilian Presti, Source: Naturally Savvy

Next, get your kids involved. Rather than just having them eat the results of your efforts, ask them to participate, and the younger, the better. Depending upon their age, you can ask your kids to retrieve ingredients from the fridge or measure out exact amounts.

Give young cooks some age-appropriate responsibilities. Let your kids create a menu, and if skilled enough, make the meal. Ask them to do this in advance so you can approve the recipe and ensure that all the ingredients are on hand.

Naturally Savvy.com

Ask the average teenager today if they know how to cook and they'll probably look at you like you have two heads. You might also get a response such as, "Cooking's a waste of time" or "Cooking's too much work." This sort of response epitomizes the predominant attitude toward cooking that prevails in America; many of us just don't value home cooking as much as we used to anymore.

But here's the rub--we know that if people don't know how to cook a basic number of meals, they realistically can't sustain their health. Why? Because restaurant foods--both fast food and sit-down meals--serve up too many unhealthy fats (trans fats and rancid oils), too much sugar and salt, too few nutrients from overcooking and improper storage, and plenty of additives that we now recognize as problematic, such as MSG, nitrates, sulfites, and artificial colors and sweeteners. Oh, and many eateries also serve us too much food, which inevitably encourages overeating.

So why do most Americans have this irreverent outlook toward cooking? It has much to do with how our society has changed its relationship with food over the last 60 years, which has led to the devaluing of the time and energy it takes to prepare home cooked meals.

In many cultures around the world--and once upon a time in America--food was central to life's daily activities. People worked on farms to grow food and livestock that they, or someone else in the household, would then prepare for meals.

Today, food production has been concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, so many kids in America don't have any connection with how their food is grown. Add to this the massive spread of fast food chains and pre-made foods available in stores over the last few decades and the result is millions of American children who enter adulthood without the basic skills required to cook even one proper meal for themselves.

Now that we're finally starting to understand that the cost of our reliance on fast and convenience foods has become a detriment to our well being, it seems clear that if we want to arm our children with the gift of good health we need to prepare them for it by teaching them the basic skills of cooking.

Parents need to be the example and cook themselves. Modeling behavior is the best way to affect your children's habits. Children cannot learn to do something if they've never been shown how. Start by cooking dinner a few nights a week at home so your children see that cooking is an integral part of life and has value.

Next, get your kids involved. Rather than just having them eat the results of your efforts, ask them to participate, and the younger, the better. Depending upon their age, you can ask your kids to retrieve ingredients from the fridge or measure out exact amounts.

Give young cooks some age-appropriate responsibilities. Let your kids create a menu, and if skilled enough, make the meal. Ask them to do this in advance so you can approve the recipe and ensure that all the ingredients are on hand.

Another option to consider if you're not confident in your own cooking skills is to enroll your child in a class (you could sign up, too). Many larger supermarkets offer cooking classes for both adults and children. Classes are one of the best ways to learn how to make food because they teach by experiential involvement. Also look for classes at community centers, or find a local nutritionist who offers courses.

Teaching your children to cook may be one of the greatest predictors of their future health status. And it all begins in the home.

(Lilian Presti is a Registered Nutritional Consultant and Naturally Savvy's pregnancy and pediatric nutritionist. NaturallySavvy.com is a website that educates people on the benefits of living a natural, organic and green lifestyle. For more information and to sign up for their newsletter, visit www.NaturallySavvy.com) (http://www.NaturallySavvy.com).