Positive lessons for kids and parents from the kitchen garden

January 17, 11:24 AMGardening ExaminerRobin Ripley

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The philosophy described by the
Kitchen Garden Foundation promotes a healthy
attitude toward food, health and the environment.

A kitchen garden offers parents and children more than fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. It can serve as a learning laboratory for positive lessons about food, health and life.

That's the message the Kitchen Garden Foundation, an Australia-based organization, is promoting.

The Kitchen Garden Foundation is a novel program that pairs a kitchen and a garden specialist in the school environment to teach kids, in a pleasurable way, about growing and preparing foods that taste good, smell good and are fun to eat.

Children spend time each week caring for the garden and helping to prepare the foods they grow. In the process they learn about where food comes from, how to prepare fresh foods and about sustainable food systems.

The lessons from the Kitchen Garden Foundation aren't only for the classroom though. The organization's philosophy has positive reminders for parents about how to talk with kids and incorporate food into the family value system.

For example, many parents may be sending negative messages to kids about food without realizing it. The Kitchen Garden Foundation stresses that  conversations with children about food focus more on the pleasures of food--taste, sight and smell--rather than the dreaded "nutritional benefits."

The Kitchen Garden Foundation philosophy provides an excellent framework for developing our own home garden effort and involving our children. Here's their philosophy.

The Kitchen Garden Foundation Philosophy

•  We stress pleasure, flavour and texture by encouraging talk and thinking that uses all of the senses.
•  We do not describe food to children using the word ‘healthy’ as the main descriptor.
•  We reinforce techniques over and over so that the children are actually able to cook simple dishes or plant seeds at home.
•  Menus are planned around seasonal availability.
•  We seek to expand the culinary horizons for children and present cultural differences as fascinating rather than strange.
•  We seek to expand the children’s vocabulary for describing flavours and textures and plant families and names.
•  We use fresh ingredients at their peak – for example, herbs should not be past their season, beans should not be overgrown and tough.
•  The cooking of raw fruit and vegetables should be timed with great care – we don’t want to present children with food that is unpalatable.
•  The garden crops underpin kitchen planning - lots of basil is likely to lead to a pesto-making session; lots of green tomatoes to chutney or pickles. Menu planning will take account of growing timelines.
•  In other words, the Garden Specialist needs to understand about the ingredients of good cooking and the Kitchen Specialist needs to understand a bit about gardening.
•  We come together around a table at the end of the cooking to share the meal.
 

Are you familiar with other school garden programs? You can leave a comment or email me at gardeningexaminer@gmail.com.