Finding the adventure in cooking

The Health Unit and Big Brothers Big Sisters have teamed up to offer Adventures in Cooking, a food skills initiative for kids between the ages of 8 and 12.

The program, available to all organizations, teaches children how to prepare healthy foods, while learning cooking terms and the basic principles of food and kitchen safety. The program focuses on healthy eating and has the kids prepare a complete meal using inexpensive foods from simple recipes.

Health Unit dietitian Erin Reyce says the Adventures in Cooking program helps promote the importance of families sitting down to share a meal together. And that is also shows how the whole family can help to prepare meals from chopping, to setting the table and to the clean up.




Quick Facts

- For a number of reasons, many families have come to rely on packaged, prepared convenience foods, and food skills aren’t being passed on to children and youth as they have been in the past.

- “Food Skills” means food preparation techniques, knowledge about food and nutrition, meal planning, being able to adjust recipes and plan for leftovers, and knowing different ways to cook foods to maximize nutrition.

- Although high schools provide optional food and nutrition classes, schools do not provide instruction on food skill development as part of their required curriculum.

- Children are more likely to eat what they help to prepare, which helps parents with picky eaters.

- Negative health effects are associated with a diet high in sodium, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates, ingredients that tend to be present in most processed foods. This reinforces the importance of knowing how to cook meals from scratch. For example, 77% of dietary sodium comes from processed foods. If more meals were prepared from scratch, less sodium would be consumed.

- Fewer families take the time to have a sit down meal together. Often families eat in front of the TV or family members eat in different rooms on their own. However, research has shown that families that eat together eat better. Also, children and youth with families who regularly eat supper together have lower rates of disordered eating and substance misuse.

If your organization or agency offers programming for children and youth and is interested in learning more about Adventures in Cooking, call the Health Unit for more information at 705-474-1400 or 1-800-563-2808 extension 2532.