Eating Better’s newest member is Kids Kitchen, a social enterprise building health and community from running scratch cooking sessions, to help families with under 5s explore and enjoy sustainable eating. The focus is on plant-based dishes using locally sourced, organic ingredients where possible. The “stay and play” sessions keep youngsters entertained and offer busy parents and carers the opportunity to master simple, savoury dishes.
On joining Eating Better, Rebecca Tully, Co Founder and Co Director of Kids Kitchen said:
"We love that Eating Better draws together people from many backgrounds with overlapping values - this is what we aim for with our simple from-scratch food activities and have seen the impact on families' food choices again and again over the last 10 years.
Kids Kitchen grew out of a need - as parents with young kids, we were seeing preachy ‘healthy eating’ classes for parents but no practical ideas - championing vegetables - that actually made our lives easier. We had to come up with at least two ideas every day for savoury meals, and it turned out others really wanted that too.
We know that what busy tired parents and carers are looking for is not another problem to solve, and that's why everything we do is a solution - easier dinners and more ideas for veggie-based cooking. We hope to bring those solutions, designed by busy carers for busy carers to this wonderful network!
We're excited to be part of this broad partnership and pledge to bring our skills and experience with under 5s and their families - to change the way we see the food on our plates and also have fun!"
Welcoming Kids Kitchen to the alliance, Eating Better executive director, Simon Billing said:
“It’s great to have Kids Kitchen on board, bringing their dynamism and passion for healthy, sustainable eating in the early years settings. Our Better by Half roadmap calls for food education to be a key part of children’s learning and experience in the early years to set them up with healthy habits for life. The focus of Kids Kitchen’s approach is plant-based cooking with local and seasonal vegetables, which is healthy, nutritious and achievable. We look forward to working with Rebecca and her team and learning from their practical experience of how to better support young families to forge healthy eating habits from an early age.”
Kids Kitchen run sessions in their own hub areas in London and the South East for nurseries and childcare settings and online. They also run a group programme of training and support - providing the skills, knowledge and community needed to lead sessions and impact how both kids and parents eat. The next group programme starts September 2022. For more information, visit Kids Kitchen’s website here