You’d be hard pressed to find a more eager and enthusiastic sous chef than your young child. Kids are fascinated by what goes on in the kitchen: the stirring, the blending, the flipping, the sauteing. Cooking is a delightful bombardment of the senses, and children want to soak it all up. There are many fun, safe ways to involve kids in meal prep, which will educate and inspire, and enhance their appreciation for food. Here are five ways you can turn your little dumpling into a foodie!

1. Take Your Child To The Farmer’s Market

Frequent your local farmer’s market with your kids in tow, so they can learn where fresh, healthy food comes from (not the supermarket shelf), and so they may put a face on the farmers who grow the fruits and vegetables that comprise their meals. Giving kids the gift of this ‘farm to table’ awareness will make them more mindful and appreciative of their meals.

2. Grow a Garden

Re-visit our post on how very green your child’s thumb is when it comes to gardening. Plant a garden together, even if it means just one pot growing one vegetable, or a windowsill herb garden. When a child sees that her handiwork and tending can produce something that may proudly go into a home cooked meal, she will beam with pride.

3. Enlist Your Child’s Help in the Kitchen

Obviously, this tip requires common sense. You don’t want your toddler, or even an older child wielding knives on the cutting board, but there are countless, safe kitchen tasks you may assign to your pint-sized sous chef. Make sure to present the task with a lot of enthusiasm (especially for older kids, who may not be keen on helping out). Young children can tear lettuce for the salad, help rinse berries, stir batter, and older kids can crack eggs, read recipe instructions aloud, and grate cheese. Even just inviting your children to watch meal prep will be beneficial to their overall understanding.

4. Consider Building or Buying Your Child a Miniature Play Kitchen

If child demonstrates a keen interest in cooking, outfit her with a play kitchen so she can pretend to bake and cook til her heart’s content. My three year-old daughter is obsessed with play food and baking, and we must stir, bake and eat at least a hundred play cookies, cakes and cupcakes a day in our household. It’s also fun to reuse empty cake mix boxes, etc., by giving them to your child for use in her own kitchen. We also spend time learning all of the different types of kitchen tools and utensils: wisks, measuring cups and spoons, etc.

5. Do Meal Planning Together

Give older children a sense of responsibility and independence by asking their opinion on what would make good, healthy meals for the week. Write the grocery list together and shop for all of the required ingredients as a family if possible. Family meal time is a sacred time to connect and regroup, and doing so over an agreed upon meal everyone will like will equate to mutual enjoyment, camaraderie and teamwork.

Images: Beth Shea

The post How to Get Your Kids Excited About Food Appreciation & Meal Prep appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m always looking for ways to burn calories while living life off the elliptical.

A Swiss friend tells me her mother always did core exercises while driving. I’ve tried those crunches behind the wheel, as well as kegel tightening during pregnancy and stretching the burgeoning turkey neck with a series of juts and releases of my chin in slow traffic. The neck thing is a bit pathetic. I’m certain passersby think I’m a crazed soccer mom with a terrible tick.

Truth be told, I prefer lifestyle burning in the seclusion of my own house, including the kitchen, where I’m totally willing to work for food.

Here are a few ways to burn while your churn, spin, scrub and whisk. Get your kids into the act, as well, for family fun and fitness. Even Martha Stewart would agree the eco-kitchen workout is a good thing.

1. The Salad Spin Arm Rotation

We tend to get lazy relying on the prewashed lettuces at the market. My husband reminds me that’s how cases of salmonella have occurred from bags not really washed so well. Instead, wash it yourself, and spin in a good eco fiber spinner, such as the nifty bamboo bowl from Cooking. You will tone your biceps (say goodbye to that jiggly upper arm flab) and gain wrist strength from the crank or pull cord. Your reward will be a healthier salad with low calorie dressing. Opt for lettuce like arugula which takes extra effort to dry. Spin away, sexy mama!

2. Floor Scrub Cardio Boost

Get down on your hands and knees, you, and start scrubbing away the extra pounds that piled up while you were lazy using that mop. Benefits include having a floor clean enough to eat off of. And, you probably will just grab a bite from the fridge while you are on the floor, since you will be too exhausted to get up and eat lunch. I once heard a Weight Watchers leader (a nutritionist at Stanford) say scrubbing the kitchen floor is how she builds up her cardio endurance. Use a safe product, like Earth Friendly Floor Cleaner or BILO wax/polish to help get the job done, along with reusable towels instead of disposables.

3. Refrigerator Wipe Down Lunges

You don’t have to bend over backwards to clean the shelves of your refrigerator, but you can do some nice lunges removing the compartments and getting them as spanking clean as this Energy Star appliance from the Eco Fridge company. Your friends will envy your sense of order and your shapely thighs. You can also stretch the calves and toe muscles reaching those higher shelves. When you’re done, eat an orange. You deserve it.

4. Washing and Drying by Hand

I remember so well doing dishes by hand in my college apartment sans a dishwasher. I was so slim. Wait, I also ran about four miles a day. Anyway, the old wipe-on, wipe-off saves lots of water and energy and gets that heart pumping. Heck, you can work up quite a lather scrubbing those pots, sister! Whistle while you work and burn even more C’s. Try using a green dishsoap, like the fragrant Nancy Boy, and organic flour sack towels for wiping like this set from Williams-Sonoma.

5. Hunt and Gather and Make From Scratch Marathon

Try following Martha’s example of making an entire meal by scratch, from the harvesting of organic veggies and fruit from your yard (think slow simmering casseroles in the crock pot or homemade pies) to the kneading of your bread and preparation of your own delicious pasta or free range meat dish. It’s a lot of work but you never heard those pioneer women kvetch, did ya? Invite the kids to help because they love to cook and need exercise, too.

The post The Eco Kitchen Workout: How to Burn While You Churn to Stay Lean & Green appeared first on EcoSalon.