TORONTO – As a mother of two, Canadian food writer Sarah Elton knows how hard it is to get kids interested in eating their vegetables.
It doesn’t get easier as we get older, either – even as adults, there’s a struggle to make it into the kitchen after work to cook dinner without the help of the microwave or some leftover take-out.
“We are more likely to open a jar of pasta sauce or pick up a rotisserie chicken. This means we are increasingly disconnected from all that good stuff that is associated with cooking good food from scratch at home,” Elton told Global News.
READ MORE: 5 tips for packing healthy, kid-friendly back to school lunches
In her latest book, Starting from Scratch, Elton attacks this reluctance by giving kids some context, guidance and information on what they’re eating. She asks kids to think about their five senses working while they eat and walks them through the sensations our tongues experience when we eat: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and pungent.
Global News asked Elton for her tips on how to get kids, and even teenagers heading off to college, interested in developing the building blocks for cooking and healthy eating.
Global News: What made you want to write this book? Books about diet and nutrition are piled high at the store, what sets your book apart?
Elton: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved to cook. Cooking is fun. When you serve a home-cooked meal to your family and friends, it feels good. And cooking food is a way of expressing yourself. This book aims to get kids excited about food as an interesting topic – the history, the science, the culture – rather than bombarding them with all the “should” and “have to.”
Global News: Why do you think it’s so hard for parents to get their kids to eat healthy?
Elton: I’m a mother of two so I understand just how picky kids can be about food. I’ll make a dish one week and they’ll tell me they love it and then I’ll make it again the next week and they won’t touch their dinner. Kids are picky. That said, I think the biggest hurdle to kids eating healthy foods is our own mindset.
In North American culture, we believe kids will only eat chicken fingers, pizza, pasta – whatever those common items are on the kids’ menu. So we need to believe that kids can eat healthy foods with pleasure. And I’ve found that if my kids are more involved in the kitchen, and understand food, they are more likely to eat a wider variety.
READ MORE: Preschoolers’ eating habits linked to future heart health risks, Canadian study suggests
Global News: At what age should kids get started in the kitchen?
Elton: I think it’s important to get kids to help out in the kitchen as early as possible. When my kids were preschoolers, I gave them a blunt butter knife and showed them how to cut mushrooms. No one enjoys cutting mushrooms more than a preschooler.
Preschoolers can help clear the table, scrape the plates – I’ve learned this from my kids’ daycares. When they are young, they aren’t really helping – let’s be honest, it usually creates more mess. But this an investment in your kids’ future – and your own future.
In France, parents often send their children to cooking classes because in that country, their food culture… their gastronomy… is part of their national heritage. It should be part of ours too.
Global News: Healthy eating is a challenge, not just for kids, but for teenagers, university students and adults. What are your tips for healthy eating?
Elton: Challenge yourself to make dinner from scratch. You can control how much salt, sugar and fat you put in your food when you prepare it yourself. And cooking from scratch doesn’t have to take a lot of time.
I play a game with myself. I try to race the clock and make a healthy dinner for my family in less time than it would take for a restaurant to deliver the meal. And then I like to calculate how much money I’ve saved by not ordering in.
READ MORE: Cartoon characters key to influencing kids to eat healthier, studies show
WATCH: Author and journalist Sarah Elton tells us about her book, Starting from scratch: What You Should Know About Food and Cooking. The book explores cooking techniques for budding kid chefs and food lovers.
Global News: What is the most common misconception kids have about food?
Elton: I think the most common misconception kids have about food is that all broccoli tastes like broccoli. Or that all fish tastes like fish. Or all carrots taste like a prototype carrot.
As I explain in the book, the way a certain food tastes is affected by where it is grown (this is called the terroir of the food) so that a carrot grown in my backyard is going to taste differently from one grown in a garden in, say Newfoundland – and it’s not going to taste anything like those baby carrots sold in a bag at the supermarket.
Also, the way a food tastes depends on the way it is cooked. If a child understands these differences, they can learn to not cast off all carrots as being the same.
Global News: How should parents approach processed foods?
Elton: I try to serve my kids as few processed foods as is possible because I am concerned about their salt, sugar and fat content. Often it is so high that the food would be bad for their little bodies.
Does that mean they never eat crackers from a box or cereal for a snack? No! But I do try to have as much healthy, home-cooked food in the freezer as I can so even when I am in a rush and really busy we have options other than opening a box.
READ MORE: What’s the best way to cook vegetables? Steaming, study says
Global News: I write about nutrition a lot but I hear from parents even more: How do they send their kids to school with a made-at-home lunch when their classmates are eating pizza, Oreos and Lunchables? How do parents navigate lunch box politics?
Elton: You are speaking directly to my heart! I live this – why does so-and-so get to eat gummies (or cake or cookies) and not me? I try not to condemn other people’s food choices and instead focus on the positive aspects of a healthy lunch.
We often talk about how what we eat actually becomes us – that our bodies use the foods we eat to help build our cells and our hormones and all the stuff that make us who we are. So the choices we make really matter and talking about it this way makes it personal.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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