While skimming a New York Times article on the poor cooking skills of contestants on The Biggest Loser, I came across a line that was extremely thought-provoking (nutritional epidemiologist Barry Popkin told the Times that “[t]he decline of home cooking worldwide, he said, is an underlying cause of obesity”), as well as some information that left my mouth agape (“Last month the government of Britain, where obesity is spreading rapidly, passed a law requiring all secondary-school students to attend cooking classes”).
Jeez, if I had kids, I think I’d want to move to England. It seems like celebrity chef Jamie Oliver had the right idea, to start by serving healthy lunches at school (Ann Cooper is doing the same thing stateside); now the British government is building on that, with compulsory cooking classes for 11- to 14-year-olds starting in 2011 (cooking classes were already required in primary schools and available by request for secondary-schoolers).
Reaction has been mixed, like this skeptical op-ed by food writer Fiona Beckett. And it’s not hard to understand one reader’s point of view on the UK Times piece, especially when the U.S. news is full of reports of imminent cuts in education spending because of budget shortfalls: “There are children leaving school who are semi-literate/numerate. Foreign languages are a joke and maths and science are ‘too difficult’. Teachers have to take on the role of parent and social worker. Get back to solid education. —R Bingham, Lauzun, France”
But I think I’m with Phil Vickery, the chef who wrote the foreword to the cookbook that accompanies the British school cooking program; he told the UK Times, “Cooking is a skill and often it is not learned at an early enough age. Once you can cook the basics you will have the best survival tool in the box to take you into adult life.”
I myself am coming late to the kitchen, despite being old enough to have taken home ec in junior high (I seem to recall making biscuits and a throw pillow—now that’s education!), but CHOW’s Recipe-Free Cooking series has been a great starting point for me.
Cooking is more important for the average person than algebra!
Plus, properly done, cooking can be used to teach other skills, like math (fractions, metric conversions, etc.), physics, and probably the single most important skill: following instructions (which is a form of reading comprehension). In addition, cooking teaches those math and physics skills in a way that’s easy to internalize and understand because they’re not abstract, show how these concepts are applicable in the real world, and can demonstrate visible cause and effect. That way, you don’t end up with people who actually argue about whether cold water comes to a boil more quickly than hot water!
I totally agree with the above comment. When I was a nanny, one of my sweet charges loved food, and loved to cook, but couldn’t get into math and history, and had trouble with writing.
I was impressed with how well she took to my little “integration” cooking lessons. As said above, it showed her fractions, chemistry, history, reading comprehension, and even punctuation in a way that made sense, and that she could work with.
Just bringing her with me to the farmer’s market dramatically improved the love this girl has for fruits and veggies. Chatting up the farmers about how rhubarb grows, sampling different types of tomatoes, and picking the best bunch of broccoli, really gave her an appreciation of what she was eating, and made her much more enthusiastic about eating good food because it was good, not just because her mom told her she had to.
It was pretty great.
Think Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs.
Before we can go on to great pursuits ( fixing the economy, designing lavish fashions or interiors, writing the best novel *ever*, ad infinitum), we have to EAT. And the way we can eat is via cooking. Teaching children to cook is one thing I think of as critical (the other is laundry…but that”s simply expediency on my front).
One has to feed oneself. If person really wants to, one can heat up servings of Pizza Rolls to get one’s calories. But if a person learns to cook, that person will be asking questions of themselves: what tastes good with X? what fresh food deals can I get at the grocery? What textures go nicely together? In asking these questions, a person will be buying better food, be more aware of that food and how to handle it, and not mindlessly snarfing down Pizza Rolls ( I use this example because it’s my greatest once-in-awhile weakness).
When you cook, you are aware. When you are aware, you make better decisions. Decision making is an important factor in battling obesity.
Let’s teach kids to cook.
Cay
Ack! Sorry.
I think you’re confusing correlation with causation. People aren’t (necessarily) fat because they can’t cook, but likely there’s another factor involved. My experience is that kids that have active involvement in any activity (well, maybe excepting the ole Xbox) tend to be more on the fit side.
I didn’t start cooking until properly motivated in college. Once the dorm food service put “frankenpotato” on the menu it was time to get out the Betty Crocker Cook book.
My school had compulsory cooking classes for one quarter for all 8th graders. Sewing, too.
Most of the boys and some of the girls complained, but I think it was good for them to at least have a sense that they could actually work a stove and not burn water.
good teachers know, the divide between teaching cooking and other life skills and teaching “solid education” is a false one. the kitchen is a wonderful laboratory and full of opportunities for teaching math, science, language, culture, and even history.