Cooking Lessons to Teach Kids the Basics
More than a decade after switching emphasis from cooking to food technology, British schoolchildren are going to be given compulsory cooking lessons. A free recipe book for every 11 year old is being distributed and £150 million ($275m) allocated for fitting out kitchens, according to reports in The Times and The Guardian, amongst others.
Ed Balls, schools minister, said, "Too many people just accept they cannot cook or simply do not have time for it...We've lost touch with making basic dishes from scratch, even though there has never been a wider range of food in our shops."
The booklet contains 32 recipes compiled from suggestions made by the general public and include stews, casseroles, sauces, meat and vegetarian dishes and desserts. They come from a range of cuisines such as British, Indian, Italian, Chinese and Spanish. All are made with fresh ingredients and are designed to include specific skills such as peeling and chopping an onion.
New government thinking is that obesity can be reduced if children (especially boys) learn more about food and cooking. Parents are being encouraged to let them spend more time in the kitchen, putting into practice what they will be learning at school. Mr. Balls emphasized, "Schools are only part of the solution. It will be great if young people have the chance to make healthy dishes from basic ingredients at home, not simply in the classroom."
Cooking lessons will become compulsory for pupils aged 11 to 14 from 2011 with an emphasis on healthy, well-balanced meals.
Although generally recognized as a positive step, there were reminders that it has taken a long time for officials to reverse their policy of closing school kitchens and replacing hands on cooking lessons with less practical skills such as designing packages for ready meals or toppings for pizzas.
The need to teach children about food and healthy eating has gained recognition recently in research comparing packed lunches with school meals. According to the British Dietetic Association, school meals were much lower in sugar and salt than packed lunches, and also included lower amounts of some important minerals, including iron. Pupils eating school meals were much more likely to eat vegetables, but pupils eating packed lunches ate more fruit. Intakes of calories, protein and starchy carbohydrate were very similar in both.
Discussion questions: What do you think of compulsory cooking lessons for kids in the U.S.? What do you think of the program's chances in reducing obesity and encouraging better eating habits? How can retailers help parents and teachers encourage kids to learn about food preparation and eating a balanced diet?
[Author's commentary] As a mother who spent a lot of time in school helping to teach kids to cook as well as my own kids and my friends and their kids, seeing the government wake up to the mistakes it has made in removing cooking from the curriculum ought to please me. But I'm spitting mad at the fact that the wheel is having to be re-invented because food technology (designing packages for convenience foods) was substituted until some bright politician realized that we're into a second generation of people who not only can't cook but eat badly and have no idea how to choose ingredients in the supermarket.