Teach Your Kids to Cook

So you send your kid off to freshman year at college and they arrive home for Thanksgiving announcing that they are now vegetarian. While some parents may be upset at the news, it shouldn't be met with trepidation. In fact, converting to a vegetarian diet can be a smart choice—studies have shown that following a well-rounded vegetarian diet can lead to lower rates of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes as well as fewer gall and kidney stones.

The problem is that young adults without any experience in the kitchen or a good grasp of nutrition think that a vegetarian diet means NOT eating certain foods. So they cut out meat, chicken and fish—and possibly dairy and eggs but don't add anything in their place.

My niece is a perfect example. Last summer, at 19 years old she decided to give up meat and chicken (she never did eat fish) and announced proudly that she was a vegetarian because it was healthier. Then I watched as she proceeded to eat Fruit Loops for breakfast, French fries and Diet Coke for lunch and a slice of plain pizza for dinner.

Not exactly a healthier way of eating.

What many kids (and all too many adults) don't recognize is that eating a vegetarian diet for your health should focus on what the diet includes, not what it excludes. We should all, omnivores and vegetarians alike, focus on eating more unprocessed vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes.

If she'd had oatmeal with fruit and nuts for breakfast, salad and split pea soup for lunch and vegetable curry over brown rice for dinner she would have achieved her goal of switching to a healthier diet. Not surprisingly, she didn't last long as a vegetarian: Without adding in a variety of plant foods, her diet was unappealing.

It is an all too common problem for young vegetarians, they get carried away with the idea but don't actually like plant foods. The other big drawback for many young vegetarians is that they don't have the necessary cooking skills.

I teach cooking classes in the Nutrition Department of New York University and I am amazed at the number of my students that are utterly lost in the kitchen. I have had students that had no idea how to peel a carrot or scramble an egg. As families get busier, many young people are not trained in the basics of cooking. Microwaving a frozen dinner, no problem—but most just don't have the skill set necessary to make a vegetable-rich vegetarian entrée.