Cooking with your toddler

One thing your toddler will be is eager to help and there are so many ways you can spend quality time with her by letting her help out while you do simple chores such as empty the dryer and fold laundry. However, there may be times when having her help might not be practical and at times like this getting her to help prepare a meal can get her out from under your feet.

The basics of cooking with your toddler

Cooking with your toddler is great fun and involving her in simple food preparation also can be a great way of raising her to try anything: you can encourage her to taste things as she goes along. A child who is a foodie is much less of a fussy eater, and this will make mealtimes much less likely to end in meltdowns as she helps herself to a little of everything! It also is a factor in her health as she grows: introducing her to the basics of fresh ingredients and food preparation is investing her with an important skill that means she’ll know what’s healthy and what isn’t. Child obesity is a growing problem and one factor is our junk food mentality – too many children are growing up in families where meals aren’t prepared from scratch but are removed from a box or ordered in.

Simple ways to involve your toddler in cooking

It needn’t start in the kitchen of course. When you are grocery shopping involve your child in choosing produce: checking to make sure it is fresh and free of bruises and blemishes. Get her to fetch things for you from low shelves and talk to her about what the item is, what important nutrients it contains and how it can help to keep her healthy (for example, ‘this fruit helps you see better!” Tell her about how the colors of fruits and vegetables make a difference – for example, that the dark leafy greens are healthier than light ones; and maybe let her pick a new fruit to try. If you have a local farmers’ market that’s all the better: ask the seller how the produce was grown (in the ground or on a tree?) and harvested – it’ll give your child an idea of how food gets from the fields to your table.

Perhaps you can also ask her to help you think up some ways you might cook the food you’ve bought – look at a cookbook together, or visit a cooking website to look at recipes. Ask her what she’d like to eat for dinner and tell her it needs to include some veggies.

When it comes to meal preparation there are safe ways to get you child hands-on as long as you ensure that any sharp cutting knives you may be using are well out of reach…

Let her weigh out the ingredients using measuring jugs or spoons. It can help her with her counting skills and her early reading if you get her to say the letter sound that starts each ingredient: for example, “what sound does flour start with?”
She can also sprinkle in additional ingredients such as grated cheese, raisins or chocolate chips. If you need crushed cookies for a pie base, put them into a Ziploc bag and have her use a rolling pin to crush them.
If you’re baking, let your child mix up the flour and liquid ingredients – for example she can sift the flour and add sugar, and mix up eggs and milk and perhaps even whisk them together with a hand whisk. Then let her combine them and mix it all up (you can have a go at it yourself after she has finished to ensure it’s all mixed up properly).
She can use shaped cookie cutters to cut out cookies from rolled out dough, or dan frosting on bough cookies that you’ve baked. Icing pens are also fun to use – she can create designs on plain sugar cookies.
She can help get used to using her eating utensils by using a plastic knife to cut banana slices or smear peanut butter and jelly on a slice of bread.
She can wash fruits and vegetables – have a special pot scrubber for the purpose so she can scrub off surface contaminants, since it’s actually better to eat fruit and cook vegetables such as potatoes with the skin on (it’s a great source of fiber).
Planning a salad? Have her tear up the lettuce and add other salad ingredients such as scallions, cucumber and tomato slices.

The information in this feature is intended for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your health, the health of your child or the health of someone you know, please consult with a doctor or other healthcare professional.

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Last Modified: 11/10/2009

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