Kids And Cooking
Pat Zifferblatt |
August 18, 2008
Better Life
Unlimited recently taught a Cooking with Kids class at our local community
college. While this is a sample of only 40 children between 4 and 13 years
of age, what we observed was interesting:
- Children have a natural curiosity. They loved picking up the pans to
see how heavy they were. They were fascinated by the big walk-in
refrigerators and commercial ovens.
- The kids wanted to learn how to cook. Many said that their parents
have the equipment like ovens and pans at home but never cook. We live
in a busy society and cooking takes time the parents don’t seem to have.
- Children are fascinated to see the fruits of their labor. Measuring
and weighing the right amounts of ingredients, mixing them, and then
seeing the product after preparation was most definitely cool.
- More than just seeing the product, they had a real sense of
satisfaction when they ate what they prepared.
Supervision is absolutely necessary when it comes to knives and stoves but
when you have the time to cook, involve the kids. Sure it may take a little
longer, but there’s no better way to help children learn how to eat better
for the rest of their lives than by teaching them to do it themselves.
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