EatingBritain.com » Kids

Bake up a feast of family fun

Sarah Cabral — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:30:34 +0000

There’s a real concern among today’s mums and dads that the essential life skills they were taught as children aren’t being passed on to their own kids. It’s especially justified when it comes to cooking. With home economics no longer a compulsory part of the school curriculum, it’s up to parents to teach their kids to cook and bake. With this in mind, kid’s food expert Annabel Karmel is hosting an exclusive webchat, packed with simple recipe ideas and tasty tips designed to encourage parents to get creative with their kids in the kitchen and have loads of fun while they’re at it.

Teaching children to cook both encourages them to eat well and equips them with one of the key skills they’ll need when they grow up. Seeing the fruits of their labours emerging from the oven gives kids a real sense of achievement, and it hardly needs saying that that the messier the ingredients that go into their culinary masterpieces are, the more they like it. Baking is especially good fun, and that’s why Annabel’s chosen to share scrumptious baking recipes with you that are a piece of cake for kids to make. She’ll also be telling you about The Kellogg’s Big Bake, a new campaign that aims to get children cooking up a storm all over the country with the ultimate prize of appearing in a Kellogg’s TV advert in May. Log on to the chat and get ready to join in the yumminess with your young ‘uns.

Annabel Karmel joins will be live online, on Wednesday 3rd December from 3pm to 3.30pm to discuss how to get your kids baking.

Click here to submit questions before the chat

For more information visit www.thebigbake.co.uk

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Family Fine Dining

Sarah Cabral — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 08:30:52 +0000

It’s long been thought that kids love nothing better for dinner than unhealthy fast food like sausages and chips. Yet it seems that we have misjudged them, and the times have changed – children have now developed a much more sophisticated palate. In a recent survey conducted by Birds Eye, more than 50% of adults questioned said that their children would eat salmon and 37% would eat Feta cheese. Other surprises were aubergines (27%), asparagus (33%) and lentils (36%)

This comes as a welcome surprise. After a long, busy day who wants to spend hours slaving in the kitchen to prepare different meals that satisfies everyone’s tastes? Now family meals can be just that, a meal that is eaten by all the family and one that is both enjoyable and healthy.

Someone who knows a thing or two about feeding children in a nutritious way to keep them healthy and happy is Dr Sarah Schenker. She will be in the studio to talk about how you can become more inventive when it comes to mealtimes, and how incorporating children’s favourite foods into your own old favourites – such as a feta cheese sandwich or a fish finger sandwich with Salmon fish fingers – can make all the difference. Making meal times fun, tasty and with foods that are better both for you and the whole family.

So if you want to know how to create easy dishes that are both nutritious and delicious, log on to our webchat and join in the discussion. Dr Sarah Schenker will be live online on 4th November at 3pm to discuss how to enjoy a healthy meal with your children

Click here to submit questions before the chat.

For more information visit www.birdseye.co.uk

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Rice Krispie Ghosts

Sarah Cabral — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Boo! Now here’s something different – a ghost that goes ‘crunch’ in the night. Making these yummy, ghoulish goodies is great family fun, and their crispy, crunchy texture goes down a treat.

Takes 15-20 minutes preparation time plus extra for decoration. Makes about 8 ghosts.

Ingredients

½ tbsp butter or margarine
110g white marshmallows
90g Kellogg’s Rice Krispies
50g desiccated coconut

Decoration

Dried cranberries
Currants or blueberries or Kellogg’s Honey Loops for eyes and mouth

Method

1. Melt butter or margarine in a large saucepan over a low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.
2. Add Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and stir until well coated.
3. While mixture is still warm, shape with greased hands into any desired design and roll or press coconut onto surface.
4. Attach decorations of choice using a little melted chocolate or prepared icing. If cut, most dried fruit will stick without needing to do this.
5. To make flat ghost shapes, flatten mixture onto a greased 33 x 20cm swiss roll baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper, using a greased spatula. The quantity will fill half the tray.
6. Depending on required size, cut mixture into squares or rectangles prior to cutting out ghost shapes which can then be bent into required shapes.
7. To make 3D ghosts, cone shapes can be made by cutting out triangles and folding round.

Tips: Look in books, magazines and comics for design ideas.

For more great recipes and ideas, click here.

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Better nursery food now!

Sarah Cabral — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:30:30 +0000

Following the massive campaign to improve school dinners, it seems now that it is the pre-schoolers who are not receiving a nutritious diet. This is the first ever report that looks in detail at the quality of food fed to young children attending nurseries in the UK.

Over 600,000 children in England and Wales go to nursery for up to ten hours a day. In many cases, nurseries are providing the majority of their daily food during the working week.

Parents expect the food their children eat at nursery to meet regulatory and nutritional guidelines, and not to include additives unsuitable for young children. After all, the younger the child, the more vulnerable their health is to poor quality food.

It may surprise you to learn that when it comes to the food served in nurseries in England and Wales, this is the current situation:

* No compulsory training for nursery staff serving food
* No clear nutritional standards
* No agency to monitor the quality of food provided
* No Government department giving a lead or promoting good practice
* No Government funding available to help nurseries improve provision

This is unacceptable changes need to be made urgently. The Government is being called upon to put in place nutritional standards that will cover all nurseries, guaranteeing better food in nurseries now. You can help by signing the petition backing our campaign.

The health and nutrition of our youngest generation should not be left to chance.

About Organix

Organix is a pioneering children’s food company that consistently campaigns to raise standards in the quality of food fed to children. We work in partnership with the Soil Association to produce regular reviews and reports into what children eat.

In 2007, we established the Nursery Food Awards to celebrate the UK nurseries that are providing healthy, fresh, local and organic foods for young children. We have also established the Organix Foundation: a grant-giving body that makes funds available for research projects that focus on the links between food quality and children’s health.

About The Soil Association

The Soil Association is the UK’s leading campaigning and certification organisation for organic food and farming. It exists to research, develop and promote sustainable relationships between the soil, plants, animals, people and the biosphere, in order to produce healthy food and other products while protecting and enhancing the environment.

To download the full report, please click here.

Source

Better nursery food now

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Cooking for kids?

Sarah Cabral — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:30:01 +0000

As economic circumstances combined with some bewildering health messages, the once straightforward business of feeding the kids has become a minefield of worry and doubt for many of the nation’s parents and carers. 62% of mums confess to worrying that they’re not giving their children meals that are both tasty and nutritious, and four out of ten say that never having as much time as they want to prepare meals is a major cause for concern.

This webchat aims to take the pressure off families at mealtimes. Dr Pat Spungin and nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton will be answering your questions about how you can balance healthy options for your kids with the simplicity of preparation to give yourself a break. Old prejudices about convenience foods are now being challenged by modern products based on real high quality ingredients. Log on to the chat for Drs Pat and Carrie’s advice on which convenience foods can not only save you time and effort, but which are also perfectly healthy for your family to tuck into.

Dr Pat Spungin, child psychologist and Dr Carrie Ruxton, nutritionist will be live online on Wednesday 15th October at 3.00pm to 3.20pm to discuss healthy, convenient food for children

Click here to submit questions before the chat.

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Tasty New Food Parcels for Hungry Students

Sarah Cabral — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:18:01 +0000

First year students moving into halls of residence or flat sharing for the first time will all appreciate a ‘Student Foodiebox’ arriving at their door, an immediate emergency supply of tasty Scottish goodies, including chocolates, biscuits and a fantastic student cook book, ‘Beyond Baked Beans’. So parents can then relax knowing that their son or daughter will be eating some wholesome Scottish produce in addition to the inevitable fish and chip shop suppers!

Foodieboxes are exciting new funky hampers – luxurious black boxes filled with all sorts of Scottish tasty treats. The range includes: Wee, Medium and Large Foodieboxes packed with goodies such as organic biscuits, oatcakes, luxury chocolates, Perthshire honey, delicious jams, relishes and chutneys. There are also specialty boxes such as the BBQ, Wee Sweetie, Coffee Morning, Tea Lovers and Porridge Foodieboxes, all with a mouth-watering selection of different products.

Speaking about the products, Peter McLean commented: “Scotland has a range of fantastic and forward thinking young food companies, manufacturing high quality produce. There’s a growing awareness of the importance of eating local, seasonal produce and reducing food miles. And we want to spread the word about all the Scottish food and drink products we have on our doorstep. Our aim is to support smaller Scottish food producers and bring the food hamper concept right up to date by delivering the taste of Scotland in a funky Foodiebox!”

Have a look at the fantastic range of Foodieboxes on the website.

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Free school dinners for Scottish pupils

Sarah Cabral — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:30:19 +0000

The announcement follows a year long pilot scheme which ran in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire, Fife and the Borders. The scheme involved 35,000 pupils and cost £5m, however, it saw an increase in pupils taking school dinners from 53% to 75%.

If this kind of increase can be replicated across Scotland, there is no doubt that there will be an improvement in the health of primary school pupils across the country. However, the Scottish Government is not funding the county-wide scheme, local councils are expected to find the money to roll out the initiative from within the funding settlement already agreed.

With council charges already under heated debate, any increases, even to support this great scheme, could prove it’s very undoing. Councils will have to find the funding somewhere without making the whole thing an unpopular, costly exercise.

The Scottish Government has made a further promise, to offer free meals to all primary and secondary school pupils with parents or carers in the lowest income brackets.

We are becoming all the more aware of how important healthy food and good nutrition, are to the development of children, so a scheme like this can only do good as far as education is concerned. I just hope that the funding is found to do a really good job of it, but not at the expense of other worth-while causes.

Source: BBC News

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Plum baby food

Sarah Cabral — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:30:22 +0000

Plum is one of my food heroes; I love their recipes, everything the company stands for and the founder Susie Willis gave us some wonderful insights when I interviewed her a few months back.

Now, Plum is back on the Eating Britain menu with a great range suitable for seven months plus. The varieties have been created to keep up with the insatiable appetite of the nation’s babies who are asking for more (confirmed by parents at a series of consumer research panels!).

All the recipes have been created by Susie Willis, using carefully selected organic ingredients, celebrated for their nutrient rich content, to create simple, wholesome, delicious recipes. They are perfectly balanced to satisfy a growing baby’s protein and energy requirements and have a unique ‘fork mash’ texture that can encourage babies to chew and make the step towards self-feeding.

There are three varieties which I asked a few of my yummy mummy friends (and their babies!) to review for Eating Britain.

Red Cabbage with Apple and Chicken

Organically reared chicken is combined with juicy apples and red cabbage to deliver a wonderful blend of sweet and savoury flavours. Parents who lacked time or confidence to prepare food using these ingredients requested this recipe.

Spinach with Salmon and Parsnip

Salmon is a firm favourite with parents who view it as a key superfood, rich in essential fatty acids and omega 3. There is currently only a limited choice for mums looking for fish dishes and this innovative recipe combines fish with a wonderful root vegetable and nutrient dense green leaf for a taste and texture sensation that will satisfy growing appetites.

Parsnip, Carrot and Cheddar Mash

Cheddar mash with superfood root vegetables offers an exciting vegetarian meal with a true homemade flavour and texture that appeals to babies and toddlers alike.

Available as convenient, ready-to-eat, re-sealable pots from Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, and Boots. RRP £2.29 / £2.49 in twin packs of 2 x 100g.

I asked my friends to consider the following when feeding their babies with the Plum Baby foods:

Packaging and portability
Taste, colour and texture
The organic nature of the ingredients
Price

One of my friend’s babies refuses to eat anything that isn’t home made, causing a lot of extra pressure on his mum, who understandably was far from enthusiastic about trying these Plum dishes. But she said she’d give it a try, so I gave her some samples and a few days later she asked “Where can I buy more?!”. Her baby absolutely loved them!

The yummy mummies really liked the clear information on the packaging and found the pots very easy to take anywhere. In particular, they felt the lids meant a lot less mess.

All the babies loved the flavours and their mums thought they tasted good too! They were particularly impressed with the ‘adult’ nature of the dishes which contain herbs and spices, and are not bland at all – “very refreshing to see”. The babies and mums really liked the texture as it wasn’t too smooth.

The organic ingredients were extremely important to some mums, as they are trying to feed their babies with only organic foods. But one mum in particular was just happy that her baby ate them, whether they were organic or not was not the most important issue to her.

All the mums said that they applauded the whole ethos behind producing a really fantastic baby food of extremely high quality, but they just wished the price was a little more reasonable. That said, they also said the foods were fairly priced considering the quality of the ingredients and the thought that had gone into producing a completely nutritionally balanced meal.

Overall, these Plum Baby foods were a roaring success with all the little plums that tasted them.

For more information about Plum Baby, take a look at their wonderful website.

Thank you very much to all the yummy mummies and their little plums for taking part in this review.

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Teenagers risk development by skipping breakfast

Sarah Cabral — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:30:14 +0000

Research released by the Breakfast Cereal Information Service shows that, although the majority of UK adults understand the importance of breakfast for improving physical and mental performance and believe it to be the most important meal of the day, 40% of teenagers are still ignoring the benefits.

When they do eat breakfast, four out of five teenagers opt for a bowl of breakfast cereal, which is also the way the majority of teenagers consume milk. However parents report that a number of factors are consistently preventing their teenage children from eating breakfast in the morning, with:

Just over half of teenagers claiming not to be hungry
Almost half getting out of bed too late
More than two in five complaining that they can’t be bothered to eat breakfast

As a result, experts warn that teenagers are missing out on important nutrients.

Prof. Tom Sanders, Head of Nutritional Sciences at Kings College London, comments: “There is a worrying trend for kids to skip breakfast and not consume milk. A cereal breakfast makes a major contribution to some key nutrients such as fibre, riboflavin, folate and calcium that are often in short supply in the overall teenage diet. These nutrients help maintain health as well promote growth and development.

“Breakfast cereal with low fat milk makes a good start for the day especially during the exam period because a carbohydrate rich meal in the morning improves mental performance.”

Dr Judith Bryans, Director and Registered Nutritionist at The Dairy Council, said: “Calcium requirements are highest during the teenage years as the majority of our bones are formed during this period. Unfortunately, the most recent diet and nutrition survey suggests that many teenagers do not get enough calcium. Having a bowl of breakfast cereal with milk would help them to increase their calcium intake along with many other nutrients their bodies need for good health.”

Reassuringly, the data also shows that nearly a third of adults are eating breakfast more regularly than they did 12 months ago. Over a third of these people claim this is because they have experienced the benefits of eating it.

Prof. Sanders concludes: “Although most parents now understand the benefits of breakfast, it’s imperative that they pass this message on to their children. The good news is that a nutritious breakfast of cereal with milk is a quick and convenient breakfast option, which can be easily fitted into the daily morning routine.”

For more information on the health benefits of breakfast cereal, visit www.breakfastcereal.org.

Research conducted by YouGov between 25^th April – 1^st May 2008

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Celebrity Chef Lesley Waters offers advice for parents dealing with fussy kids

Sarah Cabral — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:54:19 +0000

21st century kids are fussier than ever about what they will and won’t eat, posing problems for mums and dads who want to ensure their children eat well.

Almost half of parents admit to feeling under pressure from a fussy child to put certain things in their lunchboxes. Obliging your child might avoid a temper tantrum but almost two thirds admit to including the same foods in their children’s lunchboxes from day to day, raising more worries about healthy eating, just as ‘black market’ tuck shops are popping up in schools all over the country.

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Read the rest of Celebrity Chef Lesley Waters offers advice for parents dealing with fussy kids (172 words)

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