Kids Dig Food welcomes Kate Wengier, Dietitian from Foost as guest blogger for October. Foost is a family-owned business in Melbourne that offers products, workshops and classes that support families to find inspiration and ideas for fun, fresh food. Read on to find out how Kate involves her 4 kids in learning about healthy foods.
Tell me, I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn.
– Benjamin Franklin
Kids need to experience a food up to ten times before they try it and then it can take another ten or even seventeen more tastes of the food before they accept it and learn to like it. And some foods they simply won’t like, just like the rest of us. That’s a lot of arduous trying and parents, understandably, often give up.
So let’s get a bit creative, let’s get fun, let’s stop counting the times we serve up a food and start involving our kids in food so they learn to accept a wide variety of fresh, colourful food.
And more importantly, let’s do it together!
There are many ways we can involve our kids in food. From planting veggie gardens, to visiting farmers markets and berry farms to cooking. Here are some ways that I involve my kids in healthy food.
Meal planning and talking about food
My kids love helping me decide what goes on the weekly menu. It provides me with the perfect opportunity to discuss how to balance a meal. My older kids plan many aspects of the meal, where my younger ones might just pick one or two elements with me as their guide. My 9-year-old now understands that we need to have at least three different colours (red, green, yellow, orange, purple veggies) in the meal. Together we can create a meal plan. We put it on the fridge and usually it leads to more harmonious mealtimes. If tonight’s meal is not their favourite, firstly they were pre-warned and secondly, they can see that tomorrow it’s their choice.
Shopping
I know what you’re thinking. “She’s kidding me, right?” Take your kids shopping, especially to the green grocer. If you are worried about pester power then take them to the shops without the chocolate temptations. In the veggie shop, my kids just love to pull the baskets around and collect the ingredients I ask for. It’s a great way to learn names of fruits and veggies and about ripeness. It’s also great to look in the trolley and say ”We don’t have enough greens” or “I can’t see any purple” and watch them search the shop to help complete our colourful basket.
Cooking
I actually find it helpful (and not so messy) to get my kids cooking with me. As long as I give them the right tools and the right jobs. Instead of sitting them in front of the TV, we get to do something together that will encourage them to be healthier eater (triple bonus). My younger kids love to wash and scrub veggies, arrange salad on the plate, put veggies into the steamer, safely cut with their Foost First knives, mix and crumb fish, sprinkle herbs and seeds and shape meatballs. My 9-year-old can do just about everything now (I do give him a safety glove when grating). I do make sure I’m watching him and he knows to be calm and careful in the kitchen. He also knows to ask for help when taking things out of the oven.
Happy, colourful eating!
Kate Wengier
Guest writer & Dietitian from Foost
Foost has a range of kid safe knives and other cool kitchen stuff to help spark your child’s curiosity in the kitchen.
