Food for Champions: Teaching Kids How to Cook!

Learning how to use knifes safely. 

The Food for Champions programme was off to a great start last week. Some new faces and old, we had a great time preparing a delicious fruit salad! The purpose of these classes is to touch young children in Southwark and Lambeth the joy of cooking and how to eat healthily. 

Together with Enterprise Un-Ltd, the Mini Cooking Club have created a fantastic programme in which your children will learn about some exciting ingredients, where they come from and how to use them to make some tasty recipes from around the world.

We’ll then eat them together as a group with our new friends. Be quick as we have limited spaces, so don’t wait too long to sign up.

The Food for Champions programme will be held at Lansdowne Youth Centre, 278 South Lambeth Road London SW8 1UJ on Saturdays from the 9th November until the 14th of December. Sessions run from 10:30-12:30 and are completely free. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity; we’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Run by Cecilia Belier, our founder, these sessions aim to teach children the value of eating healthily and practical cooking skills, all in a fun setting with others their own age! Children must be aged 5-11 and have an interest in learning how to cook. 

Cecilia is a trained chef and has a background running MEND sessions dedicated to reducing global overweight and obesity levels. She also has a degree in International Development from the University of Hong Kong.  Cecilia currently works at Compass promoting health eating in schools and building community relations.

Click this link for our photo gallery from the session! 

Cecilia and two of our trainee chefs!

By Catherine Heath

Martin Caraher | Professor of Food and Health Policy | Interview

Martin Caraher being interviewed!

The Mini Cooking Club has been lucky enough to meet Martin Caraher!

Martin is Professor of Food and Health Policy at City University. He has had a distinguished career, working extensively on issues related to food poverty, cooking skills, local sustainable food supplies, the role of markets and co-ops in promoting health, farmers markets, food deserts & food access, retail concentration and globalisation.

In the past, Martin has worked as an environmental health inspector in Dublin, and in the Irish and the English health services managing health promotion and public health services respectively.

Read on for our interview with Martin, at City University, 22.10.13. 

Mini Cooking Club: So, why did you choose your specialist subject, public health and public health promotion?

Martin Caraher: The reason is personal, my background was environmental health for a short time, and I discovered that my colleagues didn't know anything about food, mostly technology and safety. I wanted to know about food and I left the job. I began to see in public health terms that there was a benefit in cooking skills; one of which is nutrition but the others is confidence. It can switch people's lives around and give them confidence in other areas of their lives. We did a survey in 1999, big database work, and we found that it contradicted some notions around cooking. Everybody said the poor can't cook. That may be true but the rich can't cook in equally great numbers – but they can buy their way out of it.

MCC: Was that survey related to Cooking in Crisis?

MC: Yes, that was a national survey, with other colleagues. The only people doing that work now are in the industry. The government doesn't collect this data. Tesco knows much more about our cooking habits than the government does.

MCC: What are your views on Tesco?

MC: Probably unprintable. [Laughter] They're part of a system. Not just Tesco, we're in a system where most of our food is delivered through five major retailers, eight out of every ten pounds is spent in major retailers. What we've got nationally and globally is a vested interest in de-skilling us so we're more dependent on their products.

MCC: It's the illusion of saving time. So what contribution does your research make to this field?

MC: At the moment, I think it encourages a new generation of researchers to look at this area in a slightly different light; but ironically it has made very little impact in the public health field. I think for public health people, cooking is unsexy and they'd rather crunch data or look at issues of disease prevention. Cooking is a very practical prevention issue and I think that's where Jamie Oliver has made an impact: by making it reasonably sexy and something desirable.

MCC: Cooking sometimes seems quite fluffy, rather than talking about health-issues.

MC: Yeah, and yet we know the benefits. The evidence-base has been a bit weak but now we know communities that cook have better health. The UK has a unique set of problems where the culture of cooking is not handed down. Recent research shows that in France and Korea people who cook have healthier lifestyles.

MCC: What do you think is the biggest public health challenge that people in the UK face around food?

MC: Our food sustainability and imports – which is related to a lack of cooking skills. I think cooking gives you skills around knowing where food comes from and what's in season, but the big problem in the UK at the moment is the unsustainable food supply. It is very vulnerable. We've literally got 3-5 days of food in the country so if we have an oil problem, a terrorist problem, or a major chronic disease problem and we shut down the borders, we've got a huge problem.

MCC: Do you think it's a common misconception that the middle classes are more interested in food producers and the joy of cooking?

MC: No, there's quite a lot of research out there that shows low-income people are just as concerned about these issues, but there are other things stopping them accessing local, sustainable or healthy food. Social capital, which may be time, lacking physical facilities, all those things. If you're on a low income and you've got to feed your kids, you may give them a takeaway rather than fresh food because you know they're going to eat it. Shopping practices have changed. People are not doing the big shop at the beginning of the month where they buy things they don't even need. The rise in food prices has made people more aware.

MCC: Do you think the current government doesn't care about low-income groups being able to access food?

MC: Of course not. It's all about personal responsibility but at the moment the poor are being hammered. Benefits are under threat and there is no recognition of families. We still debate notion that people should go back to work and whether full employment is sustainable or not.
The Trussell Trust is opening a new food bank every week because the government has cut off welfare benefits for food. Extending free school meals is a good thing but it's only for reception and the first two years of primary schools. Some boroughs have been doing that anyway, but it's better than nothing.

MCC: What do you think is the main role nutrition charities should play?

MC: I think what we've got to do is scale up, which is not the fault of the charities. Some of the celebrities are saying this will solve all the problems which is very dangerous, because when cooking doesn't solve obesity all that will happen is the government will cut off the funding. I think we need a strategy for it.
We also need to have restrictions on advertising and how stuff is marketed to kids. Food should be brand-free, in my opinion. We need to remove kids from all of those things as part of a big strategy, and then think how we're going to solve the problem of those adults who can't cook, so how are we going to solve that? Whether it's community cooking classes, or linking through schools, I don't know.

MCC: Would you do something less academic like working for the government? You would be the right person to do advise on food policy.

MC: No. I occasionally sit in on committees but working for government you're not allowed to say certain things. No one pays any attention to reports. Evidence is important to me as an academic but it’s not what shifts policy. It's the passion that works. Policy is driven by passion.

MCC: Are you a vegetarian for the environment?

MC: I moved to the west of Ireland in the 70's/80's and food culture was pretty mediocre. The alternative was two vegetarian restaurants and they offered something different. When I stopped working as an environmental health officer, I thought I don't need to eat meat. I think when you're that close to it you can't admit it to yourself. I hadn't had that distance and once I got that, for me it was about the best cuisine being vegetarian.

MCC: If you hadn't specialised in public health, what would you have done instead?

MC: What would I have done? What would I have liked to have done? I'd liked to have been a music critic as I'm not good enough to have been a musician. But, anything you do for joy that becomes a job is probably not as pleasurable.

MCC: Have you had any personal experiences that make you particularly passionate about working in this field? A particular moment in your life?

MC: Grandkids have been the major influence. I've got this wonderful picture of my now-seven year old granddaughter who was two, holding an apple and she's eating it. It's one of those memories of her particularly that invoked in me and my partner a major turning point around food, because it was about their future.

MCC: What is your proudest accomplishment in this field?

MC: I think it's the new generation. I've got five or six people doing PhD's in this area and I think that's the most exciting thing. We’re back to this issue that public health does not look seriously at cooking. It's not sexy or high-tech. I’m proud of actually stimulating a new generation because I want to be sitting in my garden in five years’ time. I don't want to be campaigning forever. I hope the new generation will do that and be working with people like you. That's the plan for the future. It's always the new generation.

Finish. 

Catherine Heath

Our founder, Cecilia Belier, and Martin

The end of the road for meals on wheels?

It might come as a surprise that meals on wheels - the daily delivery of hot food to the nation’s pensioners - began life as an emergency wartime measure.

Launched in Welwyn Garden City in 1943, the Women’s Voluntary Service saw it as an essential way to get food to elderly people alienated by the disruption of war.

The idea obviously caught on: by 1962, four million meals were being dished out nationwide each year. Meals on wheels continues today, provided by charities, councils and local voluntary groups.

But it’s not what it was.

Numbers are down dramatically on their post-war peak. Leeds City Council, for example, says that it only serves daily meals to 500 of its 750,000 residents, less than a tenth of a percent.

The drop is partly due to supermarkets, undercutting meals on wheels by offering a bigger choice of ready meals for about half the cost of a delivered dinner. Partly, it’s the pinch on local authorities and voluntary groups alike, unable to subsidise as many services as before.

But there has also been a marked drop in meal quality. Meals on wheels were, until relatively recently, proper dinners, cooked from scratch in real kitchens. In the war, that meant British Restaurants, subsequently local authority or charity canteens - but almost always with fresh ingredients and using traditional, homely recipes.

Sadly the deep freeze and the microwave put a stop to that, and today the majority of meals are factory-produced, frozen, and reheated to the sound of a ping. And that means they tend to be very low in the nutrients so essential to older people.

So is it time to stop feeding this stuff to our pensioners?

Many say not. Meals on wheels, claim its supporters, are a sort of care visit, often the only contact that a lonely pensioner gets in a day.

But detractors point out that the quality of most meals on wheels is so low that they are at best depriving pensioners of a healthy, balanced diet and at worse, hastening their decline.

And there is another, inadvertent reason that meals on wheels might not be doing our pensioners any favours.

Most health professionals agree that older people benefit from being active for as long as possible; from getting out of the house on a regular basis; from maintaining their independence. And what better incentive to get out, to shop and to cook, than the daily need to eat?

Indeed, as the culture of social services moves away from paternal, dependent care towards empowering old people and promoting their dignity, what better way to restore a pensioner’s independence than to get them shopping and cooking for themselves once more?

Certainly if numbers continue to decline at their current rate, meals on wheels could well disappear of its own accord. But before we lament its loss - or rush to find a replacement - let us give some serious thought to how we want the future to look.

The choice is between a world where old people, isolated in their homes get one frozen meal a day; or one where pensioners get out, meet people, do some shopping and cooking, and generally look after themselves.

It’s a hard debate to have, because in criticising meals on wheels, we attack a service that is inherently kindly and charitable. But perhaps meals on wheels is a kindness too far, one that contributes, albeit inadvertently, to a culture of isolation and dependency. Perhaps this 70-year-old institution has indeed come to the end of the road.

By Daniel Ward

Image by Ambro, freedigitalphotos.net

Babywear Choices: South London Sling Library

South London Sling Library

Have you ever wondered about the best way to carry your baby? Most people would use a buggy or a pram but there could be a better alternative. A baby sling could be the perfect choice for you.

With the birth of the royal baby, proper infant care has been all over the news.  South London Sling Library offers a unique service to all new mothers.

Slings are not used as often in Western cultures but their numerous benefits are becoming more widely known. One obvious positive is how bulky baby buggies are, when you need your hands free to perform other important tasks, like opening doors! Slings enable this and much more.

Studies show that carrying your baby has a positive impact on their psychosocial development and is more calming for the baby.

Physical health benefits for babies include:

• Promotes physical development

• Less crying and fussing

• Increased security

Other benefits include:

• Doubles as exercise for you

• Provides discreet nursing environment

• More economical than buggies

However, you need to be careful of your back when carrying a baby sling and that is why Emily and Maggie are here to help.

They’ve got a huge collection of slings and carriers that are available to borrow for a small fee. It costs from just £5 (plus refundable deposit) to hire a baby carrier for 2 weeks so that you can really find out how it will work for you and your family.

Emily and Maggie are both fully qualified and experienced Babywearing Consultants who run Sling Library sessions from West Norwood and Blackheath respectively. They are also both tutors for the School of Babywearing and work with other national organisations to promote safe, comfortable babywearing.

Marie-Yianna has now been working with Emily at the West Norwood open sessions for several months, and is currently training to become a qualified Babywearing Consultant. She will be setting up Sling Library sessions in Croydon in the next few months.

South London Sling Library are open for drop-in sling and baby carrier advice, demos and hire every week in SE27. Session entry is £2 per adult for advice, fitting and trying carriers.

Send an email to info@southlondonslings.co.uk to find out more, and follow them on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates!

Click here to find out more about the benefits of wearing a sling.

By Catherine Heath

Obesity: What Are the Causes?

 

Grant Cochrane - Freedigitalphotos.com

Introducing the Issues Surrounding Obesity
Overweight and obesity-related diseases such as cancer and diabetes are the fifth leading risk of death according to the World Health Organisation: but are we making a big fuss out of nothing? 

McDonald’s has just announced its plans to introduce the option of fruit or salad with every meal ordered in its 20 major global markets by 2020.

It’s about time: the media have been calling it the “obesity crisis”. World obesity rates have nearly doubled since 1980, with U.S. and Australian citizens claiming the highest Body Mass Index of any population.

In 2011, more than 40 million children worldwide were classified as overweight.

In Britain, the increasing burden of obesity and its related diseases is costing the NHS £6bn each year.

Is it as simple as too much in, not enough out, and should people be taking more personal responsibility for their health? Overeating without adequate exercise evidently leads to weight gain, bad health and unhappiness for the vast majority of people, but there are still many that cannot strike the balance.

Being overweight and obese can affect your self-esteem and quality of life, as well as increasing your risk of obesity-related diseases.

What Causes Obesity?
The WHO defines the main cause of obesity and being overweight as an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally, there has been:

• an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat; and

• an increase in physical inactivity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization.

Changes in dietary and physical activity patterns are often the result of environmental and societal changes associated with development and lack of supportive policies in sectors such as health, agriculture, transport, urban planning, environment, food processing, distribution, marketing and education.

In other words, modern society encourages people to become overweight or obese because they walk less, eat more and eat worse, are not educated about how to be healthy and are the targets of irresponsible marketing campaigns. Even hospitals and schools have a long history of offering junk food or fast food to vulnerable individuals, when they should really be setting the standards for health.


Conclusion
Modern society definitely encourages over-indulgence, especially with increased access to food and inventions like television. Children who once played outside are glued to sedentary activities that set them up with lifelong habits.

However, it can’t be denied that a balanced diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables, good carbohydrates like wholegrain rice and pasta, plus small amounts of lean white and red meat is going to be the road to health. No one has added extra salt to a raw carrot or apple sitting on the supermarket shelf, although you need to make sure you wash off the pesticides used in growing them.

Cooked from scratch, basic natural ingredients will supply your body with everything it needs to function properly and give you the best chance at fighting disease. It’s important to avoid paranoia about food and over thinking what is healthy, because this is fairly futile and wastes a lot of time. The Mini Cooking Club advocates practical cooking skills and nutrition knowledge to create a better society for all. 

So get cooking! Visit this page for a list of our free cooking classes for children, pregnant women and people with mental health concerns.

Further Reading: Public Views on Food Addiction and Obesity

By Catherine Heath

The Case for Higher Welfare Animal Products

Britain eats four times more ready meals than any country in Europe, and often considers buying the lowest quality food as a sign of thriftiness rather than a disregard for health. Many people would call it snobbish to buy free-range poultry and meat, rather than a genuine concern for animal welfare and their own health.

To keep up with an increasing demand for cheap food, companies have been using intensive farming methods to rear the most livestock with the least overheads. Everyone has seen the images and footage of the chickens crammed in cages with no room to move, their beaks cut off to prevent their cannibalising one another.

We should pay more attention to their treatment, because we should carefully consider everything that we put into our bodies.

James Barker - Freedigitalphotos.net

Adopting a diet of higher welfare products means that we will be healthier. Free range, organic chicken has up to 50% less fat than its caged counterpart. Pasture-reared beef has 25-50% less fat than cows reared in confinement. All higher welfare meat and eggs contain significantly increased levels of essential omega-3 fatty acids and anti-oxidants.

Factory farms also use up huge amounts of water, energy, and chemicals, often with little regard to long-term adverse effects. Chemical fertilizers and other toxic substances are polluting the surrounding environment, killing off the eco-system.

Such farms also put many small and local producers out of business because they cannot compete with the higher yields and lower prices of more intensive farming methods. This means we rely increasingly on a small number of suppliers for our national food consumption, and an oligopoly is not good for the economy.

So you can see that there are many reasons to switch to higher welfare products, although at the moment they are more expensive than the alternative. However, with time, as the public demands better welfare for the nation’s livestock, this will become the norm and prices will come down.

Bake with Compassion, run by Compassion in World Farming, is a free-range fundraiser that tries to stimulate change, and persuade people to switch to higher welfare animal products. The organisation was set up by a British farmer who was horrified by the development of modern, intensive factory farming.

The idea behind the campaign is simple: bake with higher welfare produce such as free-range eggs and organic dairy, or even with vegan ingredients, and then hold your very own cake sale, dinner party or bake-off! You’ll have some delicious results to show for your charitable efforts.

So join in this October and put some compassion in the kitchen. Visit the Compassion in World Farming website for more information.

By Catherine Heath

Wasting Less for Future Generations

The Mini Cooking Club is gearing up for Waste Less Live More week 2013, September 16th-23rd. The theme this year is Better Food for All. This is  the Mini Cooking Club’s ethos of improving the nation’s diet through teaching practical cooking skills and nutrition knowledge. Run by Waste Watch in partnership with Keep Britain Tidy, the aim is to transform the way we live so that we – and future generations – can enjoy life without costing the earth. You can read their manifesto on their website. We will be participating in waste-reducing activities during the week to promote the message.

In 2012, the European Parliament adopted a non-legislative resolution that called for action to halve food waste by 2025 and improve access to food by those in need. Waste Less Live More week is a vital campaign because so much of what the world produces ends up as waste. Though food resources have the potential for abundance, living in a privileged society we have evolved to buy more than we need. Reducing our food waste will have much-needed positive effect on the price of food.

The global economy is struggling, with 79 million people in the EU living beneath the poverty line and around 16 million relying on food aid from charitable institutions. Despite this, the UK Institute of Mechanical Engineers claims that half of the world’s food supply – equivalent to 2 billion tonnes – is thrown away each year. According to EU Commission figures, households, supermarkets and restaurants, along with the rest of the food supply chain, are currently wasting up to 50% of edible food. In Britain alone, 7.7 million tonnes of food are wasted and 16% of all food bought never even makes to it to the table.

Free Digital Photos - Stoonn

We here at the Mini Cooking Club think this is a big shame and easily avoided, so that’s why we want to share five tips with you for how to reduce your food waste:

1. Invest in Tupperware so you can store leftover food for reheating later. Supermarkets with a good selection of affordable Tupperware are Morrisons, Asda and Poundland.

2. Cling film your food items – if your food storage is airtight fresh food will last longer. Try to only tear off as much Clingfilm as you need, and if it hasn’t touched any food once you’re done you can reuse it.

3. Avoid 2-for-1 offers which encourage you to buy more than you need. Better yet, shop at the local greengrocer which is much cheaper and supports local business.

4. Instead of going shopping several times a week, try to make the most of the ingredients you already have. For help with this, use websites like Supercook.

5. A lot of food comes with excess packaging. Try not to buy multipacks with a lot of individual wrappers and go for products that are advertised as having reduced packaging. For example, coffee that comes in a recyclable packet rather than a glass jar.

The Mini Cooking Club is looking forward to wasting less with you all next week! Please post this on Twitter using the hashtag #wastelesslivemore and encourage others to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Follow Waste Watch on Twitter and like them on Facebook for regular updates.

By Catherine Heath