I was just turned on to a new website. It is called Koodies. Koodies is a play on kids and foodies and it is the brainchild of Supermarket Guru Phil Lambert. Lambert was realizing that as the world seems to be spinning faster, less and less parents are cooking at home. When they do cook, they have less time to include the kids. The result is that even less children are learning how to cook.
What’s the big deal? We are already a nation that has a huge problem with childhood obesity and diabetes. Not knowing what is in the foods that we eat is part of this issue. So kids (and many of their parents), do not understand that a McDonald’s lunch has between 30 and 50 grams of fat. Hell, many do not realize that you need to even worry about how much fat we consume. We also have very little connection to the food that we eat. People do not realize how food is grown, what it takes to produce it, and how tenuous our system is. Without our connection to the products that we consume, how can we expect anyone to care about changing the system.
So enter Phil Lambert and his new interactive community called Koodies. Loaded with videos like “Harry Makes Alfredo Sauce” and “Simple Fruit Tart.” You can share recipes, see pictures of food and other kids, and learn about things like kumquats. You can even win an iPod nano. This is an interactive community so you can not just learn from experts, but also from other parents and kids. This is a chance for you to teach and learn with your kids. Lambert realizes that the kids of today are the consumers of tomorrow. In order to make the next generation less dependent on restaurants and more reliant on themselves, and to keep the art of cooking at home alive, we need to engage children now. I encourage you to all check it out and see how you can make a connection with your kids (or even your grandkids).
cool site. thanks for sharing. we love good food, and the site looks like it has some great recipes. emma has helped me “cook” since she was pretty much old enough to walk. we’ve mixed, chopped (with my supervision, of course), and stirred lots of food. not only is it a great bonding moment for the both of us, but it is a great teaching/learning opportunity about food, nutrition and math
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it is probably difficult to make time to cook at home when both parents are working, though. i know that when we were both working, it took some major planning to make sure we could make and eat dinner at a decent hour (it meant prepping food in the AM before work). or sometimes, you can also batch cook foods and freeze them to use for days that you know you’re not going to have time to cook. but that extra time spent planning is worth it!
Thanks for the insight. I feel so lucky to have the time to really spend cooking the food we eat. I have not had to buy anything processed in quite a while. I can see how it can get so difficult when both people are working, and then to have kids as well… it would be overwhelming. I am glad you like the site, I was thinking of you when I posted it.