Good Food, Bad Food

Children learn very quickly which foods are 'good' for you and which are 'bad', fresh fruit and vegetables are good, chips, crisps and sweets are bad.  Find a home or cooking magazine and cut out a library of pictures of different foods.  Look at which ones are healthy and which ones are less so.  Explain to older children why each food is good or bad, and explain what goes into processed foods such as jam, fish fingers, chips or butter.

You may not have thought about it, but so many foods that we eat today are processed in the sense that they are factory-produced.  This doesn't automatically make them bad for us although processed foods do have a propensity to have higher levels of salt, fat or sugar, even all three!

Older children can be taught about salt, sugar and fat levels in food.  Explain how to read the nutritional breakdown found on nearly all products and have them start comparing different foods.  Take a nutritional value, such as salt, and explain that high salt levels are less healthy than low salt levels. Pick out five products from your kitchen cupboard and have your little ones place them in order of salt content, from low to high. Reiterate which end is more healthy and which are less healthy.  Do the same for fat and sugar levels too.

This exercise will quickly teach about food health in a basic way as well as an ability to understand quantities, and it's fun to play along the way!