HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF KINDY KITCHEN

Start by reading the stories from the Kindy Kitchen cookbook to your children on a regular basis. This will help your child to build interest and confidence around fruit and vegetables.

Remember that the main purpose of the Kindy Kitchen cookbook is to build happy memories of fruit and vegetables. Kindy Kitchen is there to help your child form an emotional connection to fruit and vegetables, which they will take with them as they grow older and as they become responsible for making their own food choices.

Start with recipes you know your child will love. The key to fostering a love for Kindy Kitchen (and hence eating more fruit and vegies) is to start with foods that your child already trusts and wants to interact with and eat.

Encourage your child to own their fruit and vegetable creation. If a child feels empowered around food, they are more likely to eat it. The Kindy Kitchen cookbook aims to give children as much power as possible over their food creations by offering them a chance to escape into their own magical food world, where they make the rules.

Don’t worry if your child is not ready to taste the food. It helps if parents and carers do not put pressure on children to eat the recipes but instead offer gentle encouragement, so that the child still feels in control. A great tip is to also make and eat your own recipe in front of your child (and include other children) because then it will feel like a game and your child will be more likely to participate. With time, your child will grow into their fruit and vegetables, the same way they grow into a new pair of shoes!

Do Kindy Kitchen with your child on a frequent basis. If you make Kindy Kitchen into a special event that happens on a regular basis, then children will have a better chance of connecting with fruit and vegetables as the stories and recipes will always be fresh in their mind.

Kindy Kitchen is not about disguising fruit and vegetables. Fruit and vegetables, as they are, are a wonderful and beautiful thing, however they have an emotional and physical stigma attached and so turning them into something fun and interactive gives fruit and vegies immense value. It also gives children an incentive to engage (and eat!) them more because the child will be able to play and have fun during the eating experience.

Keep every Kindy Kitchen story and recipe experience positive and upbeat.  If your child feels relaxed and the experience is a positive one, they will want to do it again and again.