Instinctively as parents we want to protect our children, however, children have now stepped into a new world of fast food and the dangers that lie therein.
The American author, journalist and activist Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens and in the built environment, for the past twenty five years.
Pollan says: 'the best marker of a healthy diet is whether food is cooked at home or by a food corporation. Poor people who 'cook' have healthier diets than rich people who don't.'
'If you cook, you're not going to have homemade fries/chips every day as they are such a pain to make (oven chips however are a 'convenient' albeit unhealthy option)
When cooking from raw ingredients we tend to gravitate toward simple things.'
'Cooking is a social act-cooking gave us the meal and the meal gave us civilisation which we are now blithely giving up. Convenience food, fast food and microwave dinners are mostly eaten alone. We have this centrifugal force driving us away from the table and food marketing encourages this as they make more money if we eat individually.'
One of my favourite chef's, Gennaro Contaldo, reminisces: 'As soon as I could talk, my family and community of neighbours taught me to love and understand the food we ate. Cooking and eating were pleasures entwined in every thread of life. The excitement I felt as a child, the sheer pleasure of mealtimes, has never faded.' Children today quite often sit down alone to a processed meal, food is no longer classed as central to family or community occasion.
Aside from the detriment to our children's health, it's a sad indictment of our society that we are not giving our children quality table time so that they can discover taste and texture and a sheer pleasure of mealtimes.
Pollan has famously quoted that we should eat only things our grandmother's generation would recognise as food, eg not turkey twizzlers or lucky charms!
My friend Clarrie takes great care with Todd's diet, as most of us do with babies, it's a shame that so many of us don't continue in this vein as children progress through childhood.
Peppers are a lovely vegetable, children love the bright colours and this next recipe adds a sweet and sour flavour. This is one of my favourite Gennaro recipes, it's tasty, nutritious and extremely easy to make.
Sweet and sour peppers
Recipe
6 tablespoons olive oil
6 peppers, mixed colours, deseeded and cut into thick strips
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tablespoon of sugar
4 tablespoons white vinegar
Salt and pepper
Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add the peppers and cook until the skins are golden
Add chopped tomatoes and garlic, stir in the sugar and the vinegar and allow to evaporate
Cook on a medium heat for 5-10 minutes until peppers are tender
Season to taste and serve hot with lots of bread to mop up the delicious juices
'The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.'
-Michael Pollan
Love Donna xxxx
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