Nourishing Ourselves: Getting Children Involved with Food

Food feeds us in so many ways: with nutrients for our body, comfort for our mind, and invigoration for our spirit. Building a healthy relationship with food is of utmost importance for a lifelong commitment of feeding ourselves in ways that nourish every part of our being. For some children, engaging with food through growing, harvesting, preparing, cooking, and eating it is second nature; for others, it can feel like a chore, or something that is often too far out of their comfort zone to be enjoyable. No matter what end of the spectrum a child falls on in their burgeoning relationship with food, it is important to meet them where they are and to focus on establishing healthful and joyful habits around how they feed themselves.

Gardening and/or Shopping for Food
Opportunities to engage with food start long before we eat it. If accessible, gardening is a wonderful way for all people, including children, to connect with nutritious foods in a hands-on, meaningful way. Children can get involved from the start by helping with researching which vegetables and fruits grow well in your area of the world, what kind of soil preparation is needed, and how to optimally design and structure your garden or plot. Helping with planting seeds or starters, caring for them, and watching them grow and thrive teaches children skills in responsibility and allows them to feel engaged with foods from their very start.

If growing food in a garden is not a possibility for you, it can be just as purposeful to involve children in shopping for food. This can be at a grocery store, farmer’s market, local farm, or local deli or market. Helping write a shopping list, choosing which foods look best, and assisting with paying all teach children the amount of work and planning that go into making sure a family or individual has access to nutritious foods. 

Food Preparation
Another experiential way to connect with food is to help with preparing it for cooking, baking, or eating. Food preparation can take many forms, including:

• Washing and/or peeling fruits and vegetables.
• Chopping fruits and vegetables for cooking, baking, or eating raw.
• Measuring and mixing ingredients for baking or cooking.
• Stirring or tending to foods cooking on a stove top or grill, or in an oven.
• Helping with canning or freezing foods to preserve.

While some of these tasks require adult supervision or may not be appropriate for younger children, people of any age can help with things like washing, measuring, and mixing. Reading recipes and measuring, in particular, can also be a great way to incorporate math concepts, such as fractions, into a child’s interaction with food.

Mealtime Experience
Including children in building a positive and fun mealtime experience is also a beneficial way for them to create a healthy relationship with food. While it’s easy for mealtime to feel mundane or stressful, striving for meals together to have a “dinner party” ambience, even on a regular weekday, helps children and families look forward to eating together. Children can help with this by setting the table with plates, silverware, and glasses, choosing enjoyable music to have on, making and decorating reusable name cards for place settings, and/or helping with serving others. Choosing fun or interesting discussion topics, playing a trivia game, or telling anecdotes about each person’s day are great ways to spark conversation and laughter during mealtime.

Whether you do one, all, or even more than the ideas above, the goal is for children to understand where their food comes from, know how to prepare it for healthful consumption, and appreciate it for all the amazing ways it nourishes us. If you are looking for ways to incorporate learning about food into your homeschooling experience, our Origins Homeschool Curriculum includes eco-conscious nutrition lessons for Kindergarten through fifth grade each month. In addition, we offer a Sustainable Health and Nutrition ecoliterate lesson for Pre-K through second grade learners.