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Parenting on Female First
Research from the Tesco Eat Happy Project has revealed that four in five children agree that they love cooking and making food with their parents. However, when asked which basic cooking tasks they had tried, from chopping to boiling an egg and making a salad, the results were much less encouraging.
Less than half of the children asked said they couldn't cut food with a knife, a third of which had never chopped a vegetable and 75% had never chopped herbs. 60% of the children had never made a salad and three quarters had never boiled an egg.
When the parents were questioned, more than half of them were worried about the impact of diet on their children's health. Children are willing enough to get involved with cooking, nine out of ten children whose parents teach them how to cook enjoy it and 80% of all the children asked said they love cooking. In spite of this, only one in five children help out in the kitchen twice a year or less.
In light of this, to help parents across the country, The Tesco Eat Happy Project, working with the Children's Food Trust, has launched a free online cooking series. Let's Cookalong, shows parents and children how to cook simple healthy meals together, great news for the 45% of parents polled who say they would like their child to learn to cook from them.
Taking taste buds round the world, the first series of Let's Cookalong episodes teaches recipes from Falafel Pittas in Morocco and Chicken Rogan Josh in India to Bruschetta in Italy. There is also a healthy dose of family favourites such as Potato Salad, Spaghetti Bolognese and Gingerbread shapes along the way.
The Let's Cookalong series is presented by trained cook and mum of two, Farah Larnauti, along with children aged between 5 and 11. She says "I always have so much fun cooking with the children. As you will see, they will be noisy, silly and laugh lots but they will learn new skills, almost without realising they are being taught. The best thing is that children are more inclined to eat healthy meals once they have been involved in cooking them."
The Tesco Eat Happy Project is part of a much wider ambition to help children live healthier lives. The project is a long-term commitment to encourage children to learn about food provenance and the importance of having a healthy and happy relationship with food.
As part of The Tesco Eat Happy Project, children can also take part in Farm to Fork Trails, Let's Cook courses in store, Let's Get Cooking after school clubs and Online Field Trips, which allow classes of primary school children to talk to farmers and food producers 'around the world' from their own classrooms.
To take part in a Let's Cookalong tutorial, or for more information such as recipes, resources and activity sheets, visit the website: www.tesco.com/eathappyproject/lets-cook.