Could your kids cook and prepare a healthy and nutritious meal for your family? If your response here is ‘No’, then we have just the answer!

Potatoes NZ are proud to introduce the It’s My Turn To Cook Tonight Bosch School Holiday Program… It’s an online-based cooking program that helps teach your kids how to cook and prepare a meal for your family’s dinner! Created by Mother-Daughter duo of Glenda and Claire Gourley they are on a mission to help get children having fun in the kitchen and learning to cook!

The aim is to give children the tools and knowledge to make healthy choices and the skills and ability to prepare a healthy meal.

“In a nutshell, ‘It’s My Turn To Cook Tonight Bosch School Holiday Programme’ teaches big kids or parents to teach younger kids to cook,” says Glenda. “The outcomes are awesome…”

Basically everyone involved benefits. The student tutors who are chosen by the parents, learn new skills and gain valuable work experience. The children have fun hanging out with the older kids and learning to cook. While the parents get treated to a meal on the table and a clean kitchen when they return home from a hard day’s work!

The first five-day ‘It’s My Turn To Cook Tonight Bosch School Holiday Programme’ will run from 16-20 April 2012. Registrations open on the 5th March 2012

For more information and to register go to www.itsmyturntocooktonight.com

Potatoes New Zealand are proud to sponsor this exciting new program – with loads of the recipes set to include the humble potato!

Here’s a message to remember from Spuddy the Potato…

Alarming statistics show that two thirds of New Zealand children are not receiving enough vegetables in their diets.* This is a serious problem because the habits that young people develop have a significant impact on diets in later life. This will consequently have an impact on health issues such as obesity and heart disease. The best way to avoid these lifestyle diseases is preventative action. The potato industry is committed to this preventative action by encouraging children to develop healthy eating habits from the onset. (more…)

This week is Food Week – an initiatve from the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation encouraging Kiwis to ‘just get in the kitchen and cook’. Food Week aims to build back confidence in homes that a home-cooked meal with basic ingredients and seasonal produce is inexpensive, easy and tasty. (more…)

Seems like the issues across the Tasman are pretty much the same as here…  the message is clear – involve your children and don’t give up!

Almost 50 percent of families with children under the age of 15 find that their children’s eating habits are a key barrier against their household consuming more vegetables, a vegetable industry report has revealed.

The findings, published in the Veginsights industry newsletter from AUSVEG this week, found that children’s likes and dislikes play an important role in household purchasing decisions and that parents need to continue to encourage their children to eat more vegetables. “There is no one-size-fits-all solution to address this problem as each family across Australia is different, however, there are several key factors that affect families buying vegetables,” said AUSVEG spokesperson, Mr William Churchill.

“A key issue preventing consumption of vegetables, is that children are resistant to consuming new foods, and therefore they need to develop taste for the food by trying it in small amounts, up to nine times,” he said.

AUSVEG is the national peak industry body representing the interests of over 9,000 vegetable and potato growers around Australia.

A recent study conducted by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation found that exposing children repeatedly to small amounts of specific vegetables will eventually result in the child liking the vegetable. “Parents need to realise getting their children to eat vegetables takes time, like when you first start to ride a bike, it takes time to get used to the process. Parents need to remember this and encourage their children to eat vegetables, provide positive feedback and hopefully vegies will become a regular inclusion at meal times,” Mr Churchill said.

The findings indicate that there are a number of different influences affecting vegetable consumption within families, with particular regard to children. “Parents and friends play a key role in regards to their children’s attitude towards vegetables,” Mr Churchill said.

(more…)

Potatoes New Zealand has developed a policy that every child going through the NZ  Health Camp system has positive potato experiences gaining skills to cook potatoes and understanding why potatoes are a good food choice. So in the course of their stay in camp they do potato activities and when they leave the camp they take a Crazy Potato Lovers Pack – complete with potatoes, baked beans, stickers and recipes. The pack contains everything the child will need to go home and cook some meal for his/her family. While there was a little apprehension initially at preparing their own meal, there were some pretty awesome final results. These are some of the comments from the children…

“this is cool” “I can’t wait to eat it”,,“I don’t like potatoes” (This child actually did eat and enjoy their potato),“I love the cheese”, “Are we really going to eat these?”,“I’m going to fill mine with everything”

When the potatoes were handed out at the end of camp the children were very proud to tell their parents that they had ‘baked a potato and made a meal’ and keen to go home and show their parents their new skills. This has turned to a positive learning experience for many of the parents too – with parents sharing how they like potatoes. Without exception the children and parents were very excited to get the potatoes to take home.

Special thanks to Turners and Growers for supplying the potatoes and Heinz Watties for supplying baked beans.