{"id":18832,"date":"2017-11-01T18:54:36","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T22:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18832"},"modified":"2017-11-01T18:54:36","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T22:54:36","slug":"kids-whip-up-healthy-options-as-food-network-gets-back-to-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/kids-whip-up-healthy-options-as-food-network-gets-back-to-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"Kids whip up healthy options as Food Network gets back to basics"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n

Forget pumpkin spice, it was all about the smells of apple and cinnamon at the York Region Food Network last Friday as local kids spent their October P.A. day whipping up healthy snack options.
\nThe York Region Food Network (YRFN), in conjunction with Windfall Ecology Centre\u2019s Healthy Kids Community Challenge, was a veritable kitchen stadium as a dozen local elementary schools spent their P.A. Day split up into two groups, led by Chef Maxine Knight, to put their very best spins on stuffed apples and muffins.
\nIt is the latest program in Aurora to get kids to turn off their smartphones and put down the game controllers and step into the kitchen.
\n\u201cWe have been doing family cooking classes with the Town of Aurora and it went great, but we had some extra resources left over and wanted to explore our different cooking options,\u201d said Windfall\u2019s Kathleen Ko. \u201cThe kids love it and the parents love it for the kids as well. The YRFN has been a great partner already, so we reached out to them and asked them if they would help us put together something and they came up with the idea for healthy snacks, which fits in perfectly.
\n\u201cWe know that a lot of calories the kids consume are from snacks outside of mealtime, so it is really important to not focus just on what kids are eating at breakfast, lunch and dinner, but what they are eating between all of those meals.\u201d
\nThis was equally important to the parents in attendance as well.
\nLisa Meglio, for instance, grew up with parents who had restaurants. Hers was not a fast food upbringing and, as a parent, they are roots that continue to support a new generation.
\n\u201cWe try to foster healthy choices at home and we\u2019re always talking about it,\u201d said Lisa. \u201cI thought it would be a nice opportunity for [my daughter] to work with some other kids, do some cooking, learn some healthy eating facts and maybe walk away with the ability to help at home in the kitchen a little bit more.
\n\u201cWe talk a lot about menus every week, I get their input on what they would like in their lunches and dinners, and we work together to make sure that choices are healthy and grounded. Growing up with parents who had restaurants, it was grounded in me, and it is just instinctively handed off to them. They were very aware that everything comes from cooking at home. We kind of keep it clean and cook at home, and my hope is [the kids] will walk away from this and keep things up.\u201d
\nIt seems like a basic philosophy, and it is, but it is a philosophy that is very much a part of both the Healthy Kids Community Challenge and the York Region Food Network.
\nWhile the P.A. Day cooking program will return to the York Region Food Network on the next P.A. Day, November 24, the Food Network will be going back to basics the previous Tuesday, November 21, with a morning of conversation about food skills, food waste, and food insecurity.
\nRunning from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Newmarket Community Centre & Lions Hall, the event will highlight food as a basic human right but a human right that is at the centre of \u201cmany of our community\u2019s most pressing issues, including health, environment, and income.\u201d
\n\u201cThis event will explore the importance of basic food skills in improving nutrition and reducing food waste and the need for basic income to impact food insecurity,\u201d say organizers.
\nThe event is free, will include food skill demonstrations, and lunch will be provided.
\nTo register, visit food4change_backtobasics.eventbrite.com or call the York Region Food Network at 905-841-3101.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forget pumpkin spice, it was all about the smells of apple and cinnamon at the York Region Food Network last Friday as local kids spent their October P.A. day whipping up healthy snack options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-02-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4TK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 22:42:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}