Should cookery be on the national curriculum?

At a time when millions of pounds are being spent on public health campaigns in the 'fight against obesity' and Weight Watchers are rolling out programs for teenagers and kids, the government is looking to drop cookery classes in schools as part of a general review of the National Curriculum. Under the previous government, the Licence to Cook programme included 24 hours of practical cookery skills for all pupils aged 11-14 and included training for teachers and funding for kitchen equipment to be installed in schools.  Now the tide has turned and despite the growing obsession over child obesity the current government are looking to ditch cookery and focus on 'core subjects' like Mathematics and English instead.


In a recent survey of schoolchildren, most didn't know that burgers were made from cows and that fish fingers had anything to do with animals that live in the sea. How can we expect the future generations to make healthy food choices when they have no idea where the food comes from and how to prepare it? Surely cookery is one of the most 'core' subjects there is? The  best way to show children how to have a healthy, balanced relationship with food and by consequence a healthy, balanced weight is to focus on teaching all youngsters basic cookery skills so that by the time they leave school they know how to take a few, simple, fresh ingredients and turn them into a satisfying, nutritious meal.


Imagine schools with a basic kitchen in each classroom: children learning how to cut, measure, weigh and mix ingredients (lots of mathematics there) and finding out about where ingredients come from, what happens to them when they are cooked together, learning to read a recipe and even writing some of their own (lots of English, Biology and Chemistry too). Imagine a National Curriculum where each child leaves school with a good grounding in cookery. When you know how to make a basic soup, a stew, a stir fry, an omelette and a pudding you are pretty much set for life.  You can decide what tastes, textures and quantities you are hungry for, you can ensure you eat food you enjoy and take pride in your work. None of the above take any longer top make than heating up a ready meal or popping out for a takeaway and with a bit of planning, they can be much cheaper. 


I recently spent a couple of hours on a Sunday morning holding a cookery workshop for 20 kids aged 2 to 10 years. As part of a larger event on recycling and using scrap to create things I went for simple recipes based on leftover bread. We made an Italian recipe called Poor Man's Meatballs - delicious, golden, crunchy, cheesy bread balls - and an easy bread & butter pudding. The children had a great time and really got stuck in, even the very little ones. They all enjoyed devouring their home-made goodies and took away a little bit of cookery knowledge that I hope will stick with them for many years.

I hope the government review will realise just how important cookery is for children's health and wellbeing and make it part of the National Curriculum. In the meantime, get your kinds into the kitchen and have fun making Poor Man's Meatballs with them. Even a 2 year old  can enjoy squishing some bread and rolling it into balls. You will be teaching them valuable skills for the future.


If you'd like Audrey aka the Kitchen Fairy to come and cook with you and your children, get in touch and drop me an email audrey[at]beyondchocolate[dot]co[dot]uk

Fruit flakes or fruit pastilles?

Like most children - and indeed many adults - my four year old loves sweets. He is particularly fond of the gummy, sugary, chewy type (I wonder where he gets that from?) and is having a current love affair with Fruit Pastilles. He is always starving when he comes out of school and because we almost never go straight home, I bring a snack bag - usually some sort of sandwich and a piece of fruit - to tide him over till his evening meal. I also always include some sweets.

Anyway, on to my story. The other day we had arranged a play date with one of his class mates and we paused in the playground so they could eat before going off to play. I pulled out the snack bag, as did the other mum, and the children dived in. When the other little boy saw the Fruit Pastilles he asked Oscar if could have some and Oscar (reluctantly) handed him a few. His mum though, didn't want him to have any, explaining that he was allowed sweets only on Saturdays and she made him give them back and pulled out a bag of Yoghurt covered Fruit Flakes and offered that up instead. She also offered one to Oscar who took it, tasted one then gave it to me making a face (I don't like it) before running off to play with his Fruit Pastilles.

Later on at home I found the bag of Fruit Flakes in my pocket and, as I always do, glanced at the ingredients out of curiosity. I shouldn't have been surprised by what I read - I should know better. But I was...

Fruit Flakes with a yoghurt coating

Ingredients: For the yoghurt coating (58%) - Sugar, vegetable fat, whey powder, yoghurt powder, wheat flour, emulsifier, flavouring. For the fruit flakes (40%) - concentrated apple puree, concentrated strawberry puree, fructose-glucose syrup, sugar, wheat fibre, vegetable fat, gelling agent, natural colouring, natural flavouring. For the Glaze (2%) gum arabic, glazing agent.

Then I looked at the ingredients on the packet of Fruit Pastilles

Ingredients: Sugar, glucose syrup, fruit juices from concentrate (grape, apple, melon, blackcurrent, pineapple, lime, cherry), gelatin, gum arabic, modified starch, acids, acidity regulator, naturally sourced colours, flavourings.

Can you tell the difference? Because they look pretty similar to me!

Do you know what really gets me? What makes me furious and want to run around the playground tearing my hair out?

It's the fact that millions of well meaning mothers are being conned, day in day out, into buying what they believe are healthy snacks whilst in reality what they are giving their children is nothing more than sweets in disguise. Here they are, battling daily with their kids, banning and restricting sweets while unwittingly feeding them the very thing they are trying so hard to avoid.

I suppose it's a pretty easy mistake to make for a frazzled mum rushing around the supermarket. The Fruit Flakes with a Yoghurt Coating are sold in the dried fruit aisle (which is reassuringly miles away from the confectionary one). The packet features pictures of plump, juicy strawberries and a big splash of creamy looking yoghurt. So wholesome. There's a little red square on the front with the words "Ideal for lunchboxes" and a checklist on the back with outrageous claims that are presumably there to reassure parents that they are giving their child a truly healthy alternative. Let's take a closer look:

• "Made with real fruit" - And? So are the fruit pastilles! It's also made with real glucose-fructose syrup but they don't mention that!
• "Contains real yoghurt" - Oh yeah? The ingredient that comes closest in the list is yoghurt power and there's only 3% of that - not of the total ingredients mind, that's 3% of the 58% that makes up the 'yoghurt' coating. That's just about 1% of the total ingredients! I'm sorry, but this does not warrant a claim that this food contains real yoghurt. It's totally misleading.
• "Natural colours" - Well thank goodness for that! I don't think there's a company out there making food for children using artificial colours these days. Even Smarties have gone natural! Oh, and so have the Fruit Pastilles...
• "Great for energy" - Says who? What type of energy? The same type of sugar fuelled energy my son gets from the Fruit Pastilles?

I'm not finished. The Fruit Flakes cost more than than the Fruit Pastilles (about 30p more) and, frankly, they taste absolutely revolting.

The problem is that these Fruit Flakes are not the exception, they are the rule. There are literally hundreds of companies out there pedalling their wares as "healthy snacks" for children and they are nothing of the sort. The supermarket shelves are groaning under the weight of so called healthy foods aimed at children which often contain as much as, or even more, sugar than sweets. Let's call a spade a spade - or a sweet a sweet. Shouldn't there be some kind of legislation in place to make sure these food manufacturers can't get away with it?

It's wrong. Just plain wrong.

Beyond Chocolate and Children

My son is 16. When I started Beyond Chocolate he wasn’t quite 6. When he was a toddler and through his first four or so years I was obsessed (it’s the only words that described the way I behaved) with making sure he had a good, healthy, wholesome diet. He never ate sweets or chocolate. I wouldn’t have dreamed of giving him anything with artificial colours or flavors. Fizzy drinks were out, fruit juice was only a rare treat. And on the other hand I gave him rice cakes in the car when he was bored. He ate his wonderfully nourishing home-made sandwiches while watching Postman Pat and this curious and spirited little vegetarian boy loved nothing better than to play ‘butchers’ whenever his Zia (aka Audrey) came over to visit! Meanwhile I was yo-yoing on and off diets constantly and eating for Britain and the rest of Europe in between.

When he was two and a half he once asked the man behind the bar at the beach cafe if he could “please have the blue ice-cream, the one with artificial colours and flavours in it”!

By the time he was nine I had created Beyond Chocolate and he had discovered the ‘Eat whatever you want’ principle. He didn’t take much persuading. Chocolate, crisps, Haribo, cake, biscuits…. he couldn’t get enough of them. I knew that taking the brakes off and allowing myself to eat what I wanted had worked for me but I cannot describe how scary it was to do the same with my children. By then he had a little sister, nearly five years younger.

I watched him put on weight and eat sweet stuff seemingly without any sign of reaching satisfaction point.

I gave them carte blanche in the supermarket and they bought junk upon junk upon junk.

I stocked up with piles of chocolate…. and it was all eaten. Hundreds (literally) of packs of crisps and they all went.

This went on for longer than I felt reasonable. I was prepared for a few weeks. But months… and months… At times I faltered (without telling them or changing anything noticeable!). I told myself I was crazy. My husband had ‘serious talks’ with me. How could I do this to my kids? It may work for my clients but these were our children we were talking about and he was not at all sure. Our friends raised their eyebrows and shook their heads (the polite ones!). Some felt they just had to speak up.

I gave the children mixed messages. Yes, eat what you want. It’s fine. As long as you’re hungry and you sit down at the table… And when they looked all innocent and said yes of course they were hungry, only minutes after dinner, I questioned them and doubted them and even though I eventually said ‘yes, they could have it, my body language was screaming NOOOOOOO!

And I was terrified as I saw Jasper put on weight and I pretended that I wasn’t.

I stuck with it. I read Preventing Childhood Eating Problems - A practical, positive approach to raising children free of food and weight conflicts by Hirshmann and Zaphiropoulos to reassure myself. It was very, very reassuring. It’s a great book.

I stopped asking if he was hungry (he ALWAYS said yes anyway!). I just kept reminding him to put it on a plate, sit down and focus.

Gradually, very gradually his attitude to food changed. After going to Costco and buying boxes of chocolate bars (Mars, KitKat, Crunchie etc) he stopped finding them all that interesting. He hasn't had a chocolate bar in months. In fact, as he reads this over my shoulder, he tells me he hasn’t has a chocolate bar in years!

After aeons of saying yes to crisps and pretzels and peanuts, he stopped asking and lost interest; they were no longer special.

He started asking to taste my luxury chocolates from Rococo, Marcolini, Valrohna a few years ago he asked for a small box of good quality chocolate for Easter rather than the huge Cadbury’s concoctions he’s been attracted to before. He'd go and stay with his grandparents in the south of France and come back with a box of Jean Luc Pele's amazing creations.

He stopped overeating at mealtimes and started leaving food on his plate.

Slowly, slowly he lost weight.

Today he is a slender, healthy young man who has a passion for good food. His favourites are things like Godminster cheddar, home made pickles, salami with white truffle, organic, dry cured bacon, fois gras and salt licorice. Having said that he’s not above the occasional pack of Doritos, a visit to KFC or a bag of M&Ms.

His relationship with food is balanced, healthy and so is he.

And now I’m watching my daughter follow the same path. As she learns to manage her desire to eat when she’s bored, to have chocolate because it’s there, because it tastes nice. And since I’ve been here before I’m more confident. We talk about it and she understands what it’s all about even when she can't or doesn't want to change how or what she's eating. I know she’ll get there in her own time and I know for certain that putting her on a diet or restricting what she eats in any way would be the best way to guarantee that aged 30 she'd be overweight, struggling with her eating! And she'd look back at photos of herself and would probably think "I looked lovely, a little puppy fat that's all, if only she had let me be!'.

Teaching our children to trust themselves, to make healthy food choices, to listen to their bodies is a process. And the key for me is that they learn to choose. I could have told them what to eat. I could have continued (as I started) to ban certain foods, to focus on their weight, to make it an issue. Instead I decided to teach them how to be discerning. By giving them information, talking and listening, I empowered them to decide for themselves so that for them healthy eating isn’t about deprivation or being good it’s something they do because they want to, because actually it’s all they know. They know about the reasons we eat when we're not hungry. They know what it's like to want something and choose not to have it. Not because it's not allowed but because they know the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger. They know about the impact of different foods on their bodies, not just because we've read about it or talked about it but because they've experimented with it themselves. Importantly, I protected them from the prejudice and mis-information all around them about 'obesity'; I refused to let them be weighed and measured at school. And most important of all; I practiced what I preached. I modeled the behaviours I wanted them to emulate. It wasn’t always easy but I stuck with it and I still do.

One of my primary goals as a parent is to make sure my children grow up feeling good about their bodies and the way they eat, healthy and fit; informed and empowered. We’ve had so many requests over the years for a Mother & Daughter workshop; if you have a daughter and you’d like to come on a workshop with her, to find out more about how you can work on your own relationship with food and support her to grow up with a healthy and balanced approach to food and her body, click HERE and let us know.