Get your kids cooking: Their culinary skills predict their future health!

Not only is getting your kids into the kitchen useful to you (who doesn’t like some extra help in the kitchen?). It’s also good for their health! Read more in this new study published in April in the Journal of Education and Behavior. The study finds adolescents’ culinary skills today are a strong predictor of their health! However, the research also shows a decline in home cooking skills, and a decline in cooking being taught in schools. Ruh roh!

It makes complete sense, when you think about it: Someone who is confident and efficient in the kitchen is less likely to reach for fast food or pre-made meals pumped with all kinds of processed crap. The authors of the study collected data over the course of 10 years to look at the impact of a person’s perceived cooking skills on their nutritional well-being as time passed. Participants reported on their cooking skills and habits in 2002 when they were all between the ages of 18 and 23. Then in 2015, they were reassessed.

The results showed those who are more confident in the kitchen cook more frequently, cook more frequently with vegetables, eat with their families more often, and eat fast food less frequently. Agreeing on common sense is the easy part, the hard part is how to actually convince your kids to cook!

Here are some tips:

Cook off:

Do you have competitive kids or teens? Turn cooking into a competition. Who can make the best meal with non-processed foods? Run a “Chopped Kitchen” or “Guy’s Grocer
Games” at home to create some excitement around cooking for your young ‘uns.

Vegetable Garden:

Vegetables always taste better when you grow them yourself. Get your kids gardening, even if it’s just a pot of kale and carrots on your porch. They’ll be way more likely to want to both eat and cook vegetables into something healthy for dinner. One of our members is a teacher and has seen first hand how their school vegetable garden has gotten her students to eat carrots, broccoli etc!

Reboot their favorite meal:

Let’s say your kid’s favorite meal is pizza. Get them involved and make a healthier version of pizza, so they both learn how to cook and eat healthy all at once. Or if it’s a sweet tooth your kids have, challenge them to a baking competition: Find a way to make cookies with more wholesome ingredients and less sugar. Or, here’s a great recipe for a healthier banana bread!

• Crushed walnuts (3 cups)
• Coconut oil (1/2 cup)
• 2 eggs
• 3 smashed bananas
• Almond butter (1 cup)
• Vanilla (1 Tbsp)

Mix together, put in a pan and bake 375 F for 45 minutes to an hour.

Take them shopping:

Take your kids to get groceries with you, and let them pick out a new fruit or vegetable
to try with dinner. The sense of power in selecting their own food will get them trying all kinds of new foods!

Create awareness:

A lot of the time, we’re not aware of how our food choices affect our mood, mind state and feelings. Once your kid starts to associate that every time they eat chocolate frosted sugar bombs they feel like crap an hour later, and that every time they eat turkey and carrots they feel like a million bucks, it will be become much easier to get them to eat healthy!

Good luck to all our healthy happy families out there, we’ll see you in health!