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If you’re schooling your children at home, chances are you’re very time poor. By teaching your children to cook, you could bundle up some learning while also getting dinner or lunch prepared.

Teaching children to cook healthy food helps them  across a range of subjects simultaneously. The bonus is, you could get a healthy meal prepared as well.

By focusing on nutritious recipes you’ll also address  topics.

Why cooking?

Being able to  in daily activities.

Learning to follow a recipe and prepare food spans a number of core subjects such as English, through reading and comprehension. Being able to weigh and measure out ingredients draws on maths concepts of volume and measurement, and the skills of inquiry and problem solving are central to science.

Teaching children to cook, and focusing on preparing healthy foods, integrates knowledge from all these subjects and  by helping your children develop motivation and communication skills.

A study in 18 year four classes , using hands-on food based nutrition activities. The children in these classes improved their  significantly, compared to children in the 16 control classes who didn’t receive the integrated lessons.

A  found active learning activities such as cooking, food preparation and school gardening had the biggest impact on improving nutrition knowledge and dietary patterns.

This was especially the case when it came to getting children to eat more fruit and vegetables and reducing their intake of sugar and total daily kilojoules.

In Australia neither children nor their parents eat enough vegetables. Energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods (junk) account for , and .

 recommends we keep junk food intakes low, while aiming for five serves of vegetables and two serves of fruit daily to stay healthy and prevent chronic diseases like type two diabetes and heart disease.

Only one in 20 adults and one in 17 children under 18 years of age .

Involving children and teenagers in food preparation , including eating more vegetables and fruit. An experimental study with 47 children aged 6-10 found when children cooked with their parents, they  and felt happier compared to when the parent cooked alone.

Even watching healthy cooking TV shows can make a difference. A recent study with more than 100 children aged 10-12 found that  to choose to eat healthily.

You can make cooking more challenging

It is common for children to think they don’t like maths and metrics, with  globally. So it is important to find  in these areas.

Cooking is a real-life way to  to your child. Show them how to  such as mass (weight), length, area and volume.

Basic maths skills are essential to .

This clear link between cooking, nutrition and maths highlights the potential to enhance .

To challenge your children’s maths ability even further, try limiting the cooking utensils used so more calculation is needed. For example, when a recipe calls for one cup (250mL) of rice, use the ¼ cup (62.5mL) measure and ask your children to work out how many of these they need to add.

Or use different types of kitchen utensils such as a measuring jug rather than a measuring cup to work out the gradations and pour the content of the cup into the jug and vice versa.

Cooking also provides the opportunity to discuss important nutrition topics with your child. Children find it easier to work out which foods are healthy and  and why.

Try sorting a recipe’s ingredients  before you start cooking. Or try to estimate the  you have added when following a recipe.

Food art – if it looks good it tastes good

Arranging healthy foods in fun and creative ways helps kids like these foods more. An  showed beautiful food designs created using spinach and fruit increased children’s desire to eat these foods.

Using food art to improve enjoyment of healthy eating is a promising way to help  eat healthy foods.

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