Dr Rosemary Stanton

Read regular updates from nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton.

Kids in the kitchen

Dr Rosemary Stanton, nutritionist

 

If your child attends a school with a kitchen garden program, you’re in luck. Children from these schools learn to grow and prepare foods and studies show they eat a wider range of vegetables and other foods and are also more prepared to help out at home. Many also introduce their families to a greater range of vegetables and recipe ideas.

Here are a few pointers to help involve kids in family meals

• Let toddlers help (they are usually keen and allowing them to help is important, even if it’s more time consuming to start with).
• Small children can tear and mix salad leaves once they’re shown how.
• Children can also set the table from an early age and pre-schoolers will often take pride in adding flowers and folding serviettes.
• Take pre-schoolers shopping and give them responsibility for choosing which vegetables the family will eat that night.
• Older children can take some responsibility for shopping too. A list is a good idea, but also give them some independence in choosing which fruits or vegetables, and also which type of meat or chicken or fish the family will eat. They need to know what will fit the budget, but some independence in shopping gives kids a good grounding for when they leave home and have to shop for themselves.
• By age 9, give children responsibility for preparing at least one family meal each week. Start with something easy like Saturday lunch and gradually work towards each child over the age of 9 preparing dinner once a week.
• Encourage kids to grow foods. If you don’t have a backyard, grow lettuce, parsley or cherry tomatoes in pots. Studies show that children who have home vegie gardens or attend schools with a kitchen garden eat more vegetables.
• Try to ensure that children see their father or grandfather or some other man preparing meals too.
• Cleaning up the kitchen needs to go with meal preparation!

Cooking healthy meals and preparing healthy snacks

 

Healthy meals include foods from the 5 food groups. You may not be able to fit vegetables into breakfast but it’s important they are part of lunch and play a starring role at dinner.

An ideal breakfast includes

• Fresh fruit - perhaps a banana on cereal or a few strawberries or other fruit in a smoothie
• Something wholegrain – perhaps wholegrain toast or one of the many wholegrain cereals (rolled oats or wheat porridge, Weetbix or Vita Brits, muesli or one of the mixed cereals that includes wholegrains)
• Milk or yoghurt or a calcium-enriched alternative.

Lunch should include

• Salads or at least some salad on a wrap, roll or sandwich
• Home made vegetable soups or something that contains vegetables that may be left from the previous evening (for example, a slice of spinach frittata)
• Either some kind of bread (preferably wholegrain) or brown rice or other grain-based food.
• Some type of protein (fish, lean meat, eggs, chicken, nuts or peanut butter, tofu, beans or other legumes)
• Fresh fruit

The ideal dinner plate has

• Half vegetables (cooked and/or salad)
• One quarter starchy carbohydrate (eg potato, polenta, rice, pasta, quinoa)
• One quarter protein (lean meat, fish, poultry, nuts, seeds, legumes or tofu)

The ideal dessert is fruit and yoghurt. Other foods are fine in small quantities or several times a week.

Healthy snacks

The following foods make the healthiest snacks

• Fresh fruit – any kind.
• Yoghurt, preferably low fat and low sugar (add frozen berries or fresh fruit for sweetness).
• Home-made smoothie (low fat milk, yoghurt, fruit).
• Glass milk with vanilla if you like it flavoured.
• A small handful of nuts, any kind. Add some sunflower or pumpkin seeds too.
• Toast – preferably wholegrain.
• Fruit breads, fresh or toasted.
• English muffins, preferably wholegrain.
• Wholemeal crumpets with a little honey.
• Soups, preferably home made.
• Popcorn, if home popped (add dried parsley rather than salt and skip the butter).
• Any vegetables, eg cherry tomatoes, carrots, celery, red capsicum.
• Dried fruit.