What's for dinner?

What’s for dinner?

I love when we’re having something for dinner that you can actually tell what is and where it comes from.

A while ago we had bought some flounder fillets from the supermarket and I told Nora (who’s 3) that we were having fish for dinner and she looked hesitantly at the white strange-looking substance I was referring to and it was almost like she said “That’s not a fish!”

Sometimes, we forget that when we tell our children “Tonight, we’re having fish!”, their concept of “fish” is NOT what’s on the kitchen counter, because in their world, a fish is a living animal swimming in the ocean or in the pond or a little creature named Nemo who has little fish friends. 

And what’s on that kitchen counter definitely does not match that image. So, sometimes we need to help them make this connection. That goes for almost anything we bring home: think about the chicken we bring home to cook, even if it’s a whole chicken, it definitely looks different from their concept of a living chicken, right? So, our kids need some help making this connection and solving the mystery of how that strange item on the kitchen counter used to be a living chicken.

 I think it’s important that we teach our kids about where the things we eat come from. Meat as well as vegetables. Not only will we give our children food confidence and knowledge, we will also teach them to appreciate the process involved in having food on our plates. From the sun and the soil to the rain involved in the harvesting of vegetables. Or when we deal with meat: how much work there’s involved in the animals ending up as meat on our plates. Let's inform our children, let's empower them and give them knowledge about the world we live in and the food we eat.

In an age-appropriate way, of course.