Good Book To Read On Healthy Cooking Tips For Kids

HEALTHY COOKING TIPS

I recently read a book by Chef Rock Harper (who won Season 3 of the popular FOX show Hell’s Kitchen and who is also the National Celeb Chef for the March of Dimes).  It’s called 44 Things Parents Should Know About Healthy Cooking for Kids and it’s well worth the read.  The fact that it’s a compact little book packed full of great information doesn’t hurt.  You can breeze through it in a day easily but the pointers for healthy cooking tips for kids are invaluable.  You’ll find that you will refer to them many times over for either new ideas or to reinforce the ones you’ve already incorporated into your parenting style.  This is a great book not only for parents who are trying to get their kids to eat healthier but for anyone really who has an eye on improving their nutrition.  The kicker is that these tips are relatively painless and can be applied to anyone’s lifestyle.

THE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

A healthy lifestyle has many components.  However, when it comes to our kids, one of the most important parts of that healthy lifestyle centers around healthy cooking.  Too often today, as Americans, we are on the go constantly and involved in way too many things.  What suffers most is our diet and consequently the meals that we provide our kids can be severely lacking in nutrition.  More importantly though, the patterns that we impart to our children today most likely will turn into health habits that they practice for the rest of their lives.

Chef Rock points out 44 different ways that you can get nutrition back into your family life.  Most of them are so basic that most of us already know these things to be great ideas.  However, it doesn’t hurt to perhaps revisit some of them and make a new commitment to embrace healthy cooking for your kids.  In fact, you should embrace these principles for yourself as well.

Here are just a few of his great ideas and what parents should know about healthy cooking for kids.

Salt is not the enemy.  Let me clarify this statement though.  Chef Rock points out that cooking at home and preparing your own food allows you the opportunity to worry less about salt than if you’re buying all prepared foods.  In terms of types of salt, kosher salt is far less “salty” than regular table salt.  It even has less sodium than iodized salt.  So using a dash of kosher salt on your fresh green beans isn’t going to have the same impact on your body as opening a can of prepared green beans. 

Families that eat together are healthier.  That old-fashioned custom of sitting down at the table together for meals still holds true in this day and age.  Making time to prepare food together and then share it together can not only encourage better eating habits but it also adds dimension to the family unit.  Meals don’t have to be formal sit-down dinners either.  They can be a picnic in the living room without TV, video games or music or they can be a bunch of fantastic sandwiches in the park.  Whatever you decide to prepare, share it as a family.

Many parts make up the whole.  Having traditional 3 meals per day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) doesn’t have to be the “norm”.  Since families are so much on the go these days, having many little meals is often easier to prepare and more readily eaten by kids of all ages.  The most important thing is to make sure most of the meals that you serve your kids are healthy. 

Eating out is not a sin.  While for the most part, kids should be having a healthy diet and learning about foods and nutrition to help them be responsible eaters later in life, the occasional trip to the golden arches or a bucket of fried chicken isn’t going to damage them forever.  Anything regimented can become mundane so change it up.  Basing most of your family’s meals on highly nutritious, healthy dishes and snacks is the main goal but the occasional “treat” of eating out should be part of every family’s game plan.  It lends variety and pleasure to what eating should be – fun and for the most part, nutritious.

Cooking is a skill everyone should learn.  In this day and age where children grow up and move far, far away from their families, it’s imperative that all children learn how to cook.  That doesn’t mean that they have to become chefs or gourmet cooks.  It does mean that they should know about basic nutrition and meal preparation.  They should also know without a doubt what healthy snacks are and what unhealthy eating habits are.  The best way to teach your kids about healthy cooking is to participate with them.  Let them come up with meal ideas and then guide them to improve their choices nutritionally.  Show them how to enjoy all kinds of foods and you will undoubtedly never have to endure a picky eater.

HEALTHY COOKING FOR KIDS

These are just a few of the many tips in this great little book, 44 Things Parents Should Know About Healthy Cooking For Kids.  I urge you to pick up a copy, read it and then to browse through it from time to time. 

This is the kind of book that you can read randomly and still get great ideas from.  It’s like a cookbook of ideas on how to make sure healthy cooking is part of your kids’ lives. 

For great ideas on making your own homemade lunch meat, check out the article on hubpages.com. 

Read more on Free Lance Writer Network.

Here are my tips on healthy cooking from hubpages.com.