Your A, B, Peas

The Food Teacher™: Inspiring children to find their inner chef and make smarter food choices

Ensuring our children are healthy, mindful and equipped for their busy lifestyles can be a constant challenge but with so many success stories and a wave of change happening on our doorstep there is a great deal to share and celebrate.

While stories of increasing childhood obesity, tooth decay and even rickets often take centre stage in the media they also serve to illustrate the need to inspire children and families to cook and ensure children understand food, where it comes from and most importantly how it affects our bodies. If we put food education at the heart of both our schools and our homes we can truly begin to feed our children’s stomachs and minds. As Jamie Oliver stated, “You don’t die young because you didn’t do your geography homework. Kids die young because they don’t know how to feed themselves.”

As a qualified teacher, registered nutritional therapist and parent, launching The Food Teacher™ in 2014 was an opportunity to make a difference and develop food education and nutrition for youngsters. Aside from two award- winning books for schools our greatest success to date has been our Young Chef Award. This was launched in 2017 in Fleetwood, Lancashire, UK and was funded by the local NHS who recognised the impact such an award could have on the long-term health and well-being of the community. Due to its success the award is now being made available to all UK and Irish primary schools.

Food education can start at home with very young children. Here, it is typically child-led and focused on sensory play where everything ends up in the mouth. Providing that opportunity to allow children to play, get messy and touch and taste foods can help to reduce anxieties and fears.

As children begin to expand their taste palette, interest in food and willingness to help in the kitchen basic knife skills and combining ingredients can be introduced. Allowing children to use knives comes down to adult judgment and readiness but cutting soft foods with scissors, safety knives marketed for children or butter knives can be a great start. In the Young Chef Award, professional chefs teach children about safety and knife skills, sharing different cutting techniques and the importance of using these when preparing ingredients.

In our award, 10 -12 year old children plan and prepare a three-course meal for their Hero within a budget of €12, to include a soup, main, dessert and drink. The outcomes have been outstanding and pupils readily rise to the challenge, which would see them passing Secondary school qualifications with flying colours. Primary schools in Limerick, with the support of nutrition coach and teacher Evelyn Hartigan and funding from the JP McManus Charitable Foundation, are currently completing the award.

Aside from encouraging your child’s school to get involved, why not support your child in the kitchen and create a couple of our Young Chef recipes? To find out more about the Young Chef Award and for Cook at Home recipes visit: https://youngchefoftheyear.co.uk/