I must admit that the idea of cooking with my kids creates such anxiety that I never even attempt it. Occasionally I will let them take turns stirring cake batter, but that’s really the farthest extent that we’ve ventured into the culinary arts. (They fight the whole time too over who gets to go first and how long the other one gets to stir, so even that little bit is not pleasant.)
But…I came across a blog post on No Time for Flashcards that helped kids make better food choices, but didn’t involve any actual cooking! Perfect! In the post called Balanced Meal Match they make food out of felt and then have the kids sort it to make food choices. I could do that. (I could…I haven’t yet, but I could.)
Today while at Target, Boo Boo saw the jar of cheese puffs and pointed and screamed, “There’s that yucky stuff!” Because I had, of course, told him one time that 
those were yucky and that’s why we couldn’t buy them. So then he asks, “Well, why do they have it here if it’s yucky?” Good question! I told him that people are allowed to make choices and sometimes people make bad choices and eat yucky stuff. That seemed to work…for the time being…but then I remembered having seen that blog post and am thinking that maybe I need to do this activity sooner rather than later.
I started hunting around on the web to see if there were any other activities we could do to reinforce food choices. I found an article on Parenting.com with some easy activities. I also remembered seeing a place called Young Chefs Academy. The kids can go and take cooking classes there…and I don’t have to do it! I’m thinking we will look into this in the Fall once Baby turns 3 and they are both old enough to go!
SimplyFun also has a puzzle that helps to teach kids about the basic food groups called Choosing Food with Tibbar.
Are you brave enough to cook with your kids?