Healthy Eating Week Assembly

Healthy Eating Week Assembly

Let’s get cooking

Aim:

To learn about personal hygiene and getting ready to cook.
To learn about food safety.
To demonstrate making a fruit salad and get children excited about cooking.

Preparation

In order to carry out the demonstrations in the assembly you will need to bring in the following items:

Getting ready to cook – apron, hairband, blue plasters, bowl of soapy water (and extras for the volunteers doing the fruit salad demonstration and yourself).
Fruit saladingredients –2bananas, 2 satsumas, 5 strawberries, 8 seedless red grapes, 8 seedless white grapes, 2 x 15ml spoons orange juice
Fruit salad equipment – a chopping board, sharp knife, large bowl, measuring spoons and mixing spoon.You may wish to bring in some extra equipment so the volunteer can choose the equipment needed for the fruit salad from a selection. You will also need a table.

Remember to check that the children volunteering do not have any allergies or intolerances to the ingredients included.

Introduction

Ask the children to put their hands up if they can cook. If they can’t cook – who does the cooking at home?

Those who cook – what can they cook? What is their favourite meal/food to make?

Ask the children why we should learn how to cook. There are many reasons to learn how to cook. Learning how to cook means we can cook dishes for our family and friends. Having cooking skills means that we can cook healthy, balanced meals for ourselves. Cooking for ourselves at home can also save us money.

Note: you may wish to play the short HEW Let’s all get cooking video.

Getting ready to cook

Before we can start cooking, we need to get ourselves ready first. Ask the children how can we get ready to cook? Use the cartoon figure (Alisha) to help prompt children by getting them to look at what steps Alisha has taken to get herself ready to cook.

Tie back long hair

It is important to tie back long hair to prevent it falling into food, dangling in food or getting caught on equipment. Strands of hair can contain many germs so it is important not to touch your hair whilst cooking.

Roll up sleeves

Rolling up your sleeves prevents dirt from your sleeves touching the food. It stops sleeves and cuffs from becoming dirty.

Wear an apron

We should wear an apron to keep our clothes clean and prevent dirt from our clothes touching the food.

Remove jewellery

It is important to remove jewellery before starting to cook as there are often many germs under rings, bracelets and watches. Removing jewellery also stops the jewellery from becoming dirty and prevents it being mixed into food. All jewellery including earrings and necklaces should be removed as these could fall into food.

As well as removing jewellery it is important to remove nail polish if you are wearing any. Coloured nail varnish can prevent you being able to see if your nails are clean underneath and the nail polish can chip off and contaminate food.

Wash your hands

It is important to wash our hands to prevent spreading germs. Wash your hands thoroughly, with hot soapy water to help remove dirt and microbes. You must wash your hands before, during and after cooking and also after going to the toilet, blowing your nose or handling waste.

When needing to sneeze, sneeze away from food and into a tissue. Then wash your hands thoroughly before handling food again.

If you have any cuts or boils on your hands cover them with a blue, waterproof plaster. Blue plasters means you will be able to see the plaster if it falls into food.

Demonstration time!

Ask the children for a volunteer – someone who thinks they can remember how to get ready to cook. Ask the volunteer to demonstrate getting ready to cook, using the props you have bought in (e.g. apron, hairbands). As the volunteer is going through all the steps, ask the children why each one is important. Make sure the volunteer has carried out all the steps covered in the PPT, where applicable.

Food safety

We need to get ourselves ready before cooking so when we are cooking we are safe and hygienic. As well as considering our personal hygiene, we need to make sure the food that we are cooking is safe to eat. Question the children on how we can do this.

Food safety tips

Here are some of examples of checks we need to carry out to make sure that the food we are eating is safe.

We need to read the labels on food and check the date marks, to make sure that we eat the food within the date mark. We also need to look on the labels to read the storage instructions and store the food accordingly (e.g. in the fridge).

We need to keep raw and cooked food separate when storing and preparing them. We also need to use different equipment to prepare raw foods from cooked foods. This will help prevent cross contamination.

Check that food is cooked properly. For example if grilling slices of chicken, you could cut open a slice to check it’s cooked all the way through. If you have access to a food thermometer use that to check the internal temperature of the food.

When reheating food, ensure that it is heated until it is steaming hot. You can only reheat food one time.

When you want to store foods to eat later, cool down the food as quickly as possible and place in a suitable container. Label the container with the date the food was cooked and the name of the dish.

Clean up waste efficiently and make sure you have a bin nearby when you cook. Collect food waste on newspaper or in a bowl on the table – place in the bin or compost after you have cooked. Always recycle used food packaging. Do not waste food.

Keep your cooking area clean and tidy, cleaning as you go along. Wash up equipment in hot soapy water.

Let’s get cooking – fruit salad

Inform the children that today we are making fruit salad. Ask who has tried a fruit salad before. Ask if anyone has made a fruit salad at home before.

Ask the children for another volunteer to help make the fruit salad at the front of the assembly. Select a volunteer and instruct them to get ready to cook following the steps discussed earlier. Check with the rest of the children that they have followed each of the steps.

Equipment

Ask the children what equipment do they think we need to make fruit salad.

To make fruit salad, we needa chopping board, sharp knife, large bowl, measuring spoons and mixing spoon.

Bring in a collection of different equipment from the school kitchen/home. With the help of the assembly, get the volunteer to select the right equipment from the collection to make the fruit salad.

Ingredients

Ask the children what ingredients do they think we need to make fruit salad.

Then measure the ingredients into the quantities specified on the presentation.

Method

Ask the volunteer to assist you in carrying out the method below.

1. Peel the satsumas and separate into segments.

2. Cut away the stalks from the strawberries, then cut each strawberry into quarters.

3. Pull the grapes off the stalks.

4. Peel the bananas and slice carefully into small pieces.

5. Place all the fruit in a bowl and mix together.

6. Add the orange juice.

Modifying a recipe

Encourage the children to make the recipe at home with their parents or carers if they want. Tell them to remember to follow the getting ready to cook steps and the food safety top tips.

At home, they could change the recipe to make it look/smell/taste different. Ask them to think of suggestions of how they could change the recipe.

They could:

•Try using different fruits – e.g. peeled and sliced kiwi, chunks of fresh mango or canned pineapple pieces;

•Use other types of fruit juice instead of orange juice – e.g. pineapple juice, tropical juice, apple juice;

•Layer the fruit salad with different flavours of low fat yogurt;

•Put chunks of the fruit onto cocktail sticks to make a fruit kebab.

Discussion

What other fruit could be used?
When would you serve fruit salad?
What could be served with fruit salad?

Other

Allow children to taste some of the fruit salad.
Get children to make their own fruit salad for BNF Healthy Eating Week.

Note: Remember to check that the children making or tasting the fruit salad do not have any allergies or intolerances to the ingredients included.