Let Kids Cook
Posted by Megan Crowe on Thursday, March 31, 2011
“A big reason children become obese is that people don’t know how to cook healthful food. We should teach students at school how to prepare healthy and tasty meals so when parents are busy they won’t turn to fast, frozen or processed food.”
Jack Mead ’11 (from the Washington Post Kids section, 3/22/11)
With his response, Jack won first place in the Washington Post’s Solutions for Childhood Obesity contest. Right on, Jack! Equipping kids with not only the knowledge but also the skills to prepare healthy foods is a huge step in the right direction toward ending childhood obesity. Did you know that Share our Strength’s Cooking Matters is doing just that?
In fact, just last week I experienced the power of Jack’s idea at work in a Cooking Matters class at MC Terrell Elementary School in Southeast DC. It was week four of our six week class and we were talking about snack foods, everyone’s favorite. On the menu for tonight were stovetop macaroni and cheese, trail mix, fruit smoothies, and a raspberry lime fizz drink.
But before we could begin cooking we talked about the some healthy and unhealthy snacks. The kids gave several great ideas for healthy snacks from each food group, including strawberries, grapes, Triscuits, yogurt, and even ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, and raisins…delicious!). We learned that healthy snacks will give us good nutrition and keep us feeling full and energized throughout the day. Then it was time for sugar, not to eat but to measure. We looked at the sugar content of different beverages like soda, sports drinks, iced teas, juice, and chocolate milk. The kids measured out the amount of sugar in each drink, learning that a lot of times drinks come with more than one serving per bottle and we drink a lot more sugar than we think we are.
Now it was time to cook! Our two teams went to work on our recipes. Team “Mac and Cheese” began grating cheese and measuring out milk, flour, and cottage cheese for our healthier macaroni and cheese recipe. They also added yogurt, orange juice, bananas, and cinnamon to a blender to make our fruit smoothies. Team “Lime” started by making the raspberry-lime fizz with 100% cranberry-raspberry juice, seltzer water, and lime juice. It took all the strength they had to squeeze the juice out of the limes, but they loved the taste, frequently licking their hands when we were done squeezing (don’t worry they washed them again!). After our fizz was made they turned to the trail mix, where they combined pretzels, whole grain cereal, raisins, unsalted peanuts, and chocolate chips into one delicious treat.
As we were sitting down to eat, one boy exclaimed of the raspberry fizz, “This is excellent!” Another said to me about the trail mix, “Can I get the recipe for this to make it at home?” While we ate, they suggested things we could have done differently – add other dried fruits to the trail mix, use frozen strawberries in the smoothies, and add more lime to our raspberry fizz. Looks like they have the makings to become future top chefs.
Jack was right. Let kids cook. They just might surprise you. And you might even learn a thing or two in the process.
March 31, 2011 | 1 comment(s) | Tags: Cooking Matters, education, healthy recipe, schools, washington dc
Comments
1 reader comment so far.
Your truly captured the spirit of Cooking Matters for Kids, thanks for sharing! My nephews were just in town and discovered they liked shrimp....and so we even put it on pizza! The kids DO surprise you!
Posted by Janet McLaughlin on April 1, 2011
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