When choosing food that comes in a packet, the first thing you should do it read the ingredients list to know what’s going in your body and to help you make a healthy choice.
In Canada, by law companies must list all the ingredients in a packaged food. Ingredients are listed in order of weight from most to least. This means that a food contains more of the ingredients at the beginning of the list and less of the ingredients at the end of the list.
On your last nature walk, did you find any plants that made your heart sing? Have you revisited them to see them grow and bloom? It’s beginning to look like summer with blooms, fruits and all kinds of plant delights. What will you spot in your neighbourhood?
Do you ever feel regret about putting unused veggies or vegetable trimmings in the city compost? At Project CHEF we believe food is much too important to waste. If you have a little patio garden, it might be time to try a worm bin to make your own compost. Put those veggie scraps to work and make what we gardeners call, black gold.
It’s all the rage – growing your food waste to eat it again. There is a remarkable joy in making something from nothing. For this activity, you will have everything you need at home to watch these plants grow.
There is nothing better than harvesting something and eating it right away. Herbs are our flavour makers, they bring joy to our food and fill our hearts with the flavour of home. In this activity we share some tips for a mini herb garden, especially geared toward young people and what we know they love. If you have never really grown anything before, pick one plant you like to use in the kitchen, and try growing it.
We’ve been hearing a lot about yeast these days. Everyone wants it and it’s hard to find in the stores. What’s so special about yeast? Lots!
Scientists keep records, so do farmers, and so do we! Since planting your potatoes, what have you noticed? What can you observe? After planting your seed potatoes, in Part 1 of this activity, your Project CHEF task over the next two months is to look closely, pay attention to the details, and write down your observations. The more specific, the better.
We’re crazy about carrots at Project CHEF and we celebrate them weekly in our program. In this post you will find many activities to get you learning more about this tasty BC vegetable.
Are you looking for something to cook? It’s always more fun when YOU choose what’s for dinner, right? Searching for new recipes can help keep a cook inspired. Kid’s cookbooks make following a recipe easy with step-by-step instructions and pictures. Some great examples aimed for beginning-level cooks are Pretend Soup (1994, Tricycle Press), Honest Pretzels (1999, Tricycle Press) & Salad People (2005, Tricycle Press), written and illustrated by Mollie Katzen. Salad People is aimed at beginner-level chefs in the kitchen. It is a great place to start cooking, even for those who aren’t reading yet. Honest Pretzels is aimed at kids aged 8 and older, so they can cook with just a little adult assistance. Are you ready to get cooking?
BC is blessed with a bounty of good food grown right on our doorstep. We get to enjoy what our farmers grow and producers make throughout the year. Many of these ingredients we recognize right away but others may cause us to pause, look at carefully and do a little research to find out what they are and how can we enjoy eating them.