Secret to getting children to eat greens? Add salt!
ONE of Scotland’s leading restaurateurs has called on parents to spend more time in the kitchen with their children instead of rushing them off to violin or ballet lessons.
Carina Contini, who owns three award-winning restaurants, also believes that giving youngsters vegetables flavoured with ‘evil’ salt, butter or oil – or serving them raw – is the best way to make healthy food more palatable.
Mrs Contini’s Scots-Italian family runs some of the best-known food businesses in Edinburgh including delicatessen Valvona & Crolla.
Speaking at a conference on food, the 47-year-old said: ‘I have been criticised for having my children in the kitchen while others have been learning the violin, but there’s so much time involved in preparing food.
‘My children do ballet and violin, but I have come across other parents who feel that unless their children are at 50 classes they are not getting enough of their share of life experiences.
‘But sometimes cooking at home is not a bad thing, or for them to have some tasks at home that are not fun, but essential.’
Mrs Contini spoke at the Vegetable Summit Scotland, in Edinburgh, which was aimed at getting more people to eat vegetables, and for fruit and veg consumption to become ‘the new normal’.
Scots in poorer households eat only 2.5 portions of fruit and vegebutter tables a day on average, compared to 3.2 portions in wealthier households – which is still far short of the recommended five a day.
Mrs Contini admitted ‘bribing’ her children Orlando, 15, Carla, 13, and 11-year-old Arianna with salt, and olive oil or experimenting with raw vegetables to persuade them to meet the target.
The businesswoman and her husband Victor, 54, own Contini Ristorante, Cannonball Restaurant and The Scottish Café and Restaurant, all in Edinburgh.
‘I have had to bribe my children,’ she said. ‘Not everyone’s palate is akin to a particular flavour and it is difficult to get children to engage with different vegetables.
‘So I add butter, olive oil and sometimes salt. If you want to stimulate and enhance their appetite, giving children vegetables without salt is a no-win situation.
‘Salt is so important, but it has become the evil of our modern age as there is so much in processed food. But if you are cooking then you are not adding too much.
‘But we are competing against chain restaurants who are cooking food somewhere and transporting it and these big, brash boys are confusing everyone.’
The summit also heard concerns from catering professionals that Scottish schoolchildren do not even recognise some vegetables.
Keith Breasley, national chairman of ASSIST FM, which represents Scottish council facilities management staff, said: ‘Our challenge is getting kids to eat vegetables. There are some areas where children do not recognise veg, let alone eat it. We don’t have enough time at lunch any more. Sometimes we have hundreds of kids to get through in 40 minutes. We can’t fulfil our desire to educate in that time.’
Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell told the summit a new strategy on diet and obesity would be published shortly.
She added: ‘Our country has poor consumption rates exacerbated by austerity. We need to eat more vegetables and fewer sweets and cakes.
‘It is little wonder two-thirds of Scots are overweight or obese and this indicates a need for action.’
‘Challenge to get kids to eat veg’