Health and Well-Being-Keep kids in the kitchen for holidays
Holiday baking can be a fun way to help your "junior chefs" learn about food preparation and nutrition.
"Young children love to help, and they really take pride in showing adults how much they can do. By inviting them to assist with holiday baking, parents can help build their children's self-esteem, as well as skills, creativity, and knowledge of food and nutrition," says Becky Gorham, RD, a research nutritionist with the USDA/ARS Children's Nutritional Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
According to Gorham, children who learn to enjoy food preparation at a young age might be more inclined to cook for themselves and less dependent on convenience and fast foods as adults. She offers these tips to help you get started:
• Teach children to wash their hands before and after preparing any food.
• Read recipes before starting and decide what tasks small hands can do.
• Assemble all ingredients and equipment.
• Small children have short attention spans, so choose recipes that are simple and offer lots of opportunities to stir, add ingredients, and decorate.
• Keep nutrition in mind. Fruit and nut breads, oatmeal and peanut butter cookies, carrot and fresh apple cakes, and peanut-dense peanut brittle are more nutritious treats than high-fat brownies and fudge.
Decorate cookies with dried fruits and nuts. This is also a good time to experiment with fat- and calorie-cutting strategies, such as using egg whites or egg substitutes instead of whole eggs, replacing some solid shortening with applesauce, and replacing whole milk or cream with evaporated skim milk.
• Give older children lessons on using the can opener, measuring ingredients, setting timers, and reading recipes.
• Kitchens can be dangerous if children are not well-supervised. Children who cannot reach the counter should stand on a sturdy stepstool — not a chair. Teach young children to avoid touching hot baking pans, ovens and sharp knives. Instruct older children to turn pot handles toward the back of the stove, wipe up floor spills immediately, and use padded potholders to remove hot pans from the oven instead of damp towels.
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