I read today that Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls launched Real Meals – Simple Cooking Made Easy, a free cook book for 11 year olds, which contains 32 recipes to help promote cooking skills for secondary school children in England. In the Food Standards Agency, we have always felt that there needed to be more cooking for secondary school children and young people and we are delighted that this has moved a step further forward.
The ultimate aim for secondary aged children and young people will be that they have the skills and knowledge to choose, cook and eat safe, healthy food. This is something that the Agency has invested considerable effort to help deliver through the food competency framework, which provides the building blocks for the knowledge and skills that children and young people need to develop in order to live independent lives, as well as through the many cooking clubs and schemes we have contributed to over the years.
Our evaluation of the cookery clubs that we have been involved in over the years has consistently shown that interest in such clubs from all ages is high, and that skills development is only one aspect of the benefit – often the social interaction and confidence that these approaches also provide are of equal or greater benefit to the participants, and have potential for implementation through a range of partners. What was learned from our What’s Cooking? programme was fed into the School Food Trust';s Let’s Get Cooking! programme that was launched last year.
So we will look with interest how young people respond to the cook book announced today. Will courgette, red pepper and cheese crumble catch on with today's younger generation? Is croque monsieur going to grab their interest? In particular, the FSA will be keen to see how young people adapt to the healthier approach, which includes not adding salt, and choosing lower fat alternatives where possible.
You can also get further ideas of lower salt, fat, and sugars recipes together with the relevant information on food allergy and food safety for these recipes from our eatwell website. We will be adding to these this autumn. So whether you are using the cook book launched today in schools or using FSA recipes both in and outside school, happy cooking!
By way of a plug, do join in the launch of my annual report on science in the Agency today, when I, with colleagues, will lead an interactive session on science and food this afternoon from 2-4pm at the BA Festival of Science. If you're not at the BA you can join in at the webcast link by voting and emailing questions.