In a suburb near you will find me – Karen Koutsodontis – passionate educator and mum – helping to support children and partner with teachers in a Incursion program that is taking Melbourne by storm. Providing children with a hands-on, fun, interactive cooking workshop – The Travelling Kitchen equips the children of today and the adults of tomorrow with essential healthy food knowledge, basic yet enduring cooking skills and works with classroom teachers to ensure each workshop pops with fun whilst supporting core learning/curriculum needs.
The Travelling Kitchen visits primary schools, kindergartens, after-school care programs, Children’s festivals and school holiday programs to help inspire and educate children about healthy eating and the skills to enjoy and make healthy food.

Being a food technology teacher for 13 years andmother of two, I noticed how many students arrive in their teens without knowing about basic nutrition and healthy eating practices. They can go from having healthy home-made lunches during primary years to buying processed, canteen food daily in secondary school. There is a huge shift in the eating practices of children to teens, so we need to start earlier, teaching healthy habits that will follow them through the years.

In the context of Australia’s rising obesity rates, the healthy cooking workshops offered by The Travelling Kitchencould not have come at a better time. Australia has among the highest rates of adult obesity in the world according to a 2013 OECD report ‘Health at a Glance’ (at 28.3% of the population aged 15 and over) and, more alarmingly, 1 in 4 Australian children are overweight or obese. We can’t just wait for Government to invest in strategies to reverse these rates, nor on schools or families alone – we need to all work together to intervene, educate and inspire healthy thinking and practice as early as possible. Learning to cook is a life-long skill and learning to eat healthy is knowledge that is required to live a long, fulfilling life. These skills and habits can be taught, they ought to be taught given the alarming rates of obesity in this country and children simply love and are good at cooking, creating and experimenting – so it’s a match that is meant to be! The earlier and more personal the educating – the better- that’s where TK comes in – teaching cooking skills to the young children of Australia in a direct, engaging, fun, sensory-rich and memorable way.

The Travelling Kitchen has visited more than 50 different locations this year, cooking with more than 400 students, and most of them agree one of The Travelling Kitchen’s best recipes’ is TK RICE PAPER ROLLS TAKE HOME – so quick, easy, fresh and nutritious, able to be made with an array of different fillings!

Have a go at it today!

Please contact Karen to find out more www.thetravellingkitchen.com.au or hello@thetravellingkitchen.com.au