By IANS,
London : British secondary school children will embark on a culinary odyssey from 2011 when it will become compulsory for them to learn how to cook as part of a 150 million pounds ($260 million) government plan to inculcate healthy eating habits.
To help them mentally prepare to enter the kitchen-classroom, the government has brought out a 32-recipe, student-friendly cook book, listing choice dishes from British, Asian and Mediterranean cuisines.
The recipes that schools will teach – all suggested by the public – include mutton roganjosh, the ubiquitous chicken tikka, sphagetti bolognese, apple crumble, chowmein, mushroom risotto and lamb hotpot, reports The Times.
Chef Phil Vickery, who wrote the foreword to the book “Real Meals”, said teaching children to cook was the best preparation they could receive for adulthood.
“Cooking is a skill and often it is not learned at an early enough age,” he added. “Once you can cook the basics you will have the best survival tool in the box to take you into adult life.”
The cookbook is available online and secondary heads will be able to order copies for their Class 7 pupils.
Schools secretary Ed Balls’ aim is to check fast food and tackle obesity by encouraging children to make their own meals, not only in schools, but even at their homes.
“Proper cooking, budgeting and planning means that you can prepare healthy nutritious meals cheaply even in the face of rising food prices. It puts you in charge of your own health. Schools are only part of the solution. It will be great if young people have the chance to make healthy dishes from basic ingredients at home, not simply in the classroom,” Balls said.
The government’s anti-obesity and healthy eating drive will see it spend 150 million pounds to build new teaching kitchens in schools and another 75,000 pounds for recruiting and training teachers.
Balls also urged parents to get their children, especially boys, to learn to cook at home. He called for an end to the “classic gender divide”, which sees very few boys learning to cook at school. Fewer than 4,000 boys sat for exams in home economics this summer, compared to almost 42,000 girls.
The government began an overhaul of school meals after television chef Jamie Oliver campaigned against the poor-quality meals being served in canteens. At the same time, the British Dietary Association dished out research that showed packed lunches to be equally unhealthy, containing more sugar, sodium and saturated fats.
Cookery is currently compulsory in primary schools and secondary school pupils are entitled to learn it if they want.