COOKING WITH CHILDREN: KIDS IN THE KITCHEN

Children learn by touching, tasting, feeling, smelling, and listening. They love to help prepare food and cook because they can use all their senses. Children like to eat the foods they make. Plan ways the children in your care can help you. Be sure to consider the age of the child.

Two-year-olds are learning to use the large muscles in their arms. They will enjoy activities such as:

• scrubbing vegetables and fruits
• wiping tables
• dipping vegetables and fruits
• tearing lettuce and salad greens
• breaking bread for stuffing
• snapping fresh beans

Three-year-olds are learning to use their hands. Try activities such as:

• pouring liquids into a batter
• mixing muffin batter
• shaking a milk drink
• spreading peanut butter on firm bread (This may be messy!)
• kneading bread dough

Four- and five-year-olds are learning to control smaller muscles in their fingers. Offer them experiences such as:

• rolling bananas in cereal for a snack
• juicing oranges, lemons, and limes
• mashing soft fruits and vegetables
• measuring dry and liquid ingredients
• grinding cooked meat for a meat spread
• beating eggs with an eggbeater

IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER

1. Good cooks of all ages always wash their hands before cooking.

2. Tell children to wait until the dish is done before sampling it. This will help prevent illness.

3. Expect spills and messes.

4. Children have short attention spans. Give them quick, simple jobs, and give instructions one at a time.

5. Children get excited and forget. Repeat directions as often as needed.

6. Young cooks need constant supervision.

7. Give children jobs to help with cleanup.

RECIPES FOR HELPING HANDS

ONE-BOWL FRENCH BREAD

Children love to knead and shape dough. Allow plenty of time for the children to do as many tasks as possible.

3 to 3 1/2 cups unsifted flour
1 package dry yeast
4 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons soft margarine
1 1/2 cups very hot water (105-1150F)

Combine 1 cup flour, sugar, salt, and undissolved dry yeast in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly. Add margarine. Add very hot water gradually to dry ingredients. Beat 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour or enough to make a thick batter. Beat 2 or 3 minutes. Stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap.

Let rise in a warm place for 45 to 60 minutes. Stir dough down and turn out onto heavily floured surface. After washing children's hands, flour them and have them knead dough until it is smooth. Shape dough into one large oblong or let the children experiment with different shapes and sizes. Try pretzels, animals, letters, numbers, or holiday shapes.

Place on a greased baking sheet and let rise (40 to 50 minutes for a large loaf, less time for small shapes). Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (40 minutes for a large loaf, 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown for small shapes).

TASTY TORTILLAS

flour tortillas
cooked ground beef, cheese, refried beans and other vegetables for tortilla filling

Give a tortilla to each child. Fill with cooked ground beef, cheese, and/or vegetables.

WALDORF SALAD

1 stalk celery
1 apple
1 cup seedless grapes, cut in half
1 banana
1 orange
1 cup low-fat lemon yogurt

Have children wash the celery, apple, and grapes. Children can peel the banana and orange. An adult should cut the fruit and celery into bite-size pieces. Have children place fruit and celery in a large bowl. Add yogurt and mix well.

FUNNY, FRUITY PIZZAS

low-fat mozzarella cheese slices (1 slice per child)
English muffins, sliced in half (1 half per child)
fruit (an apple, banana, orange, or seedless grapes)

Have the children wash the fruit. Children can peel bananas and oranges or pluck grapes from their stems. An adult should cut the fruit into small pieces.

Split the English muffins. Give each child one half. Have the children place a slice of cheese on each muffin. Toast the English muffins until the cheese melts. Have each child top his or her muffin with fruit.

Reprinted with permission from the National Network for Child Care - NNCC. Van Horn, J. E. (Ed.) and L. Horning (Ed.) (1995). Cooking with children: kids in the kitchen. In Todd, C.M. (Ed.). *Family child care connections* 4(6). Urbana, IL: National Network for Child Care at the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service.

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy

Would you like to curb your kids’ junk food habit and help them make healthier food choices? According to a new study, healthy eating habits begin at home – with mom and dad. Kids eat healthy when parents show them how to choose the right foods – and when they keep junk food out of the cabinets and refrigerators.

Want Healthy Eating Kids? It All Starts at Home

According to results of the 2010 American Kids Survey, which looked at the lifestyle, eating and purchasing habits of 5,000 children between the ages of 6 and 11, mom and dad have a major influence on whether kids eat healthy or whether they become junk food junkies. Kids are more likely to make the right food choices when they don’t have easy access to junk food and when parents emphasize good nutrition at home.

Healthy Eating Habits for Kids: What This Study Found

Some of the insights from this survey were that parents who don’t keep junk food at home or eat it themselves are more likely to have kids who eat healthy. Keeping junk food out of easy reach of young hands not only restricts a child’s access to it, but lets a child know that nutrition is important.

Another insight from the study was that kids whose parents show them how to read nutrition labels are more likely to read them themselves and are less likely to eat foods that have little nutritional value. According to this survey, kids who have parents who read nutrition labels are also more likely to participate in sports.

Healthy Eating Kids Have Parents Who Emphasize Nutrition

When it comes to healthy eating habits for kids, the opposite is also true. Kids who have parents who don’t read labels, buy junk food and de-emphasize nutrition have children who make the wrong food choices and load up on more junk food.

The Take Home Message

Set a good example for your kids. Talk to them about nutrition and encourage them to make the right food choices. Getting them involved in the decision-making process and rewarding them for choosing healthy foods is a good way to alter their eating habits for the better.

Other ideas? Take them to the grocery store and challenge them to pick out healthier foods. Turn it into an educational game. Teach them the upsides of nutrition in a way they can relate to. Emphasize that good nutrition means more energy so they can run faster and play harder. Most kids like that idea.

Let them help out in the kitchen by peeling vegetables and doing other simple tasks. Use that time to talk about the benefits of the food you’re making and how it relates to their health.

The bottom line? Keep the cabinets and refrigerator free of junk food if you want healthy eating kids and teach them the importance of eating right. And don’t forget to lead by example.

References:

Medical News Today. “For Kids, Eating Starts at Home”

How To Instill Healthy Eating Habits in Your Kids

A healthy diet is essential for people from all walks of life, and if we start our children out right, it will be so much easier in the long run. Also, as our children grow older and become more independent, it will be so much harder to teach them about healthy eating. So, it is of utmost importance that we instill healthy eating habits in our children at a young age. The following simple tips will help you do just that for your children:

Set an example

Children love to mimic mom and dad. And when it comes to diet, they tend to follow what their parents do. Eat well-balanced meals and your children are likely to follow suit and this will carry on into their adulthood.

Plan meals together

There is nothing children love more than cuddling up with their mom or dad with a good book. Why not pour through a cookbook that is filled with healthy recipes and pick out a new recipe together to make once a week? If that’s just not doable, then every 2 weeks – whatever works best for your family. This should be fun, not stressful.

Involve your children in the preparation of meals

Children love working alongside their mothers and fathers, why not allow your child to be your little helper in the kitchen? Using a strong and durable step stool such as the Guidecraft Kitchen Helper Stool, little ones can safely reach the sink where they can wash fruits and vegetables, or countertops where they can measure and mix ingredients together. Make sure to announce to everyone at the table that your child helped cook the meal. That will make your child feel so proud and so much more likely to eat it and especially if it’s from a recipe that you picked out together.

Eat together as a family

Eating together as a family is so important and sadly, more and more families are abandoning this wonderful, time-honored tradition. Not just for healthful eating habits, studies have shown that children who come from homes where meals are not eaten together as a family, are more likely to make poor choices in other areas of their lives. They are more apt to smoke, drink or experiment with drugs than those who sit down for dinner with their families.

Eating together as a family is a time for connecting and sharing your days with one another. When children share dinner time with their families, it provides them with the feeling of belonging and being accepted. They just won’t get that if dinner consists of a quick, greasy meal from the local fast food joint. Research shows that more fruits and vegetables are consumed by families that eat together.

Turn off the television

When people eat in front of the television, they become unaware of just what they are eating and how much of it. And even if the whole family is together, it’s not quality time if everyone is tuned into the tv, instead of one another.

Positive communication with their families helps foster positive relationships that will help children and parents talk through tough issues when they arise.

Indulge now and then

Like all things in life, it’s important to have a balance. If you completely deprive your kids of certain foods, they most likely will have even more of a desire for it as most of us always want what we can’t have. By allowing them to indulge once in a while, they will be less likely to over-indulge when they are older and away from you.

Bonnie Lim is the founder of A Kid Place. Check out their blog at blog.akidplace.com as well as their online store at www.akidplace.com.

How to Get Toddlers to Eat Healthy

The toddler years can be one of the most difficult periods for most parents to go through. That is due to the fact that such young children are only just figuring out how to communicate with others, but can easily and frequently become distressed when we don’t fully understand them. Another contributing factor is the simple fact that toddlers are learning how to express their feelings more openly, which can often times result in pouting or throwing a temper tantrum. Due to the toddler’s discovery of independence, one of the most trying issues most parents deal with is getting their toddler to eat healthy. In fact, getting toddlers to eat healthy often times calls for imaginative and creative thinking on mommy’s part.

One of the easiest approaches of getting your little one to consume nutritious foods is by allowing him or her to exercise his or her her newly found independence by making choices. This doesn’t suggest that you bring her to the grocery store and allow her to choose each and every thing that she desires. You do need to guide her. For example, while you are in the food store, present her with the choice of getting apples or grapes. Then, whichever she chooses will go in the shopping cart. These are each wholesome foods that she can have at snack time. So, when snack time comes around, grab the fruit and say excitedly, “Look! Let’s eat the _____ you picked out!” Most of the time, your child will be delighted to eat the food she helped pick out.

Another way to get your tot to eat healthy and well-balanced meals is to prepare food creatively. For example, many moms are learning how to get their fussy kids to eat vegetables by pureeing them and mixing them in with foods they love. A great example of this is pureeing butternut squash and mixing it in with the cheese mixture for macaroni and cheese. Or you can sneak a bit of cauliflower in with mozzarella cheese in a homemade pizza or mix it in with mashed potatoes. Add vegetable juice to meat by injecting it in with a flavor injector. Yet another good idea is to add a little bit of raw spinach to fruit smoothies – I”ve been doing this for years without detection. While these ideas may be brand new to you, there are, in fact, several cookbooks out there containing tasty recipes using these methods.

Just like each and every child is completely unique, there are many different things that will work for each girl or boy. And so, when healthful eating is your mission, find things that work and use them for as long as you possibly can. You might have to adjust strategies in the future, but until that time occurs, remain consistent with what works well for your children.

Bonnie L. is the founder of A Kid Place, visit at www.akidplace.com and check out our blog at http://blog.akidplace.com/.