Do your kids enjoy healthy cooking? If they are like most children this may be a challenge for you and you may be wondering, How do you make healthy cooking fun for kids? The good news is that this is not that hard to do. I have found memories of when I was young watching disney movies in the kitchen while making and canning homemade applesauce and peaches.
1. Just like I mentioned above, you can consider turning on a movie or listening to music while cooking. You need to make sure if you do this though that your child is still helping you cook and not just sitting around watching or listening.
2. Involve your child directly in the cooking process by taking him or her with you to the grocery store and helping him or her buy the ingredients and then helping you cook. It also helps if you cook something that he or she likes to eat.
3. If you have more than one child consider having a healthy cooking fun competition. You could chose two meals that you want to cook. One for dinner that night and another for dinner later in the week that you can easily freeze or save in the fridge for a few days, and have each child see who can cook his or her meal the fastest and in such a way that it tastes the best. If you want you could even have prizes. Obviously you have to figure out if this will or won’t work given the personality types and ages of your specific children.
4. Assign your child small cooking tasks such as peeling the potatoes or washing the lettuce in a salad spinner.
5. Give your child choices as to what you will cook. Include complete meals and only offer healthy eating choices that you want to serve. There are lots of studies that say that if you give a child a choice between one of 3 or 4 meals, then he or she will choose one of them. Whereas if you just say “What do you want to eat?” The child may choose something you don’t want him or her to have.
6. Start having your child help you with cooking very simple things and then progress to more complicated dishes later after he or she has mastered the simple ones.
7. Consider watching a cooking show together or attending a cooking competition in your local area such as a chili cook or something similar so your child will see people having fun cooking.
Got other ideas for healthy cooking fun for kids that you have tried? Share your ideas in the comments below I would love to hear them.
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