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Cook and Eat

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Cook & Eat

Cook & Eat is a six week after-school programme offering classes to parents, carers and their children that focus on developing cookery skills and improving knowledge and understanding of a healthy diet.

The aims are to:

  • get wholesome, healthy and home-cooked food into children, by encouraging both parents and young people to learn more about what they eat
  • show those attending the sessions how to budget to reduce the household food bill

Participants:

  • compare costs of prepared meals against the cost of home-cooked, basic recipes
  • experiment with dishes, including homemade bolognaise, healthy pizzas and vegetarian curries
  • learn about food hygiene and safety

The programme also aims to promote social inclusion and community development.  Each of the six sessions lasts about 2 hours.

The programme was originally developed by Hampshire PCT, Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust and Eastleigh Borough Council in partnership with HC3S.

From April 2008 to July 2011, Cook & Eat ran as a Big Lottery Funded Project in 74 schools and 18 children’s centres across Hampshire.  The project was managed by NHS Hampshire and supported by HC3S, a number of local authorities and the children’s centres’ management team.

Sponsorship from the Big Lottery has now ended but some schools and children’s centres will continue to run courses using other sources of funding.

Resources from the project are still available and are listed below.

Resources
icon Cook & Eat Toolkit (1.74 MB) – this is the main resource for Cook & Eat.  It includes guidance on running the programme and the six sessions.  NOTE: this resource has not been updated since 2008 (except for a replacement photograph for copyright issues).  The contact details of individuals and website addresses are likely to be out-of-date.  Some of the recipes have minor errors in the ingredient quantities but the corrected versions of these recipes are available below.

icon Recipes (189.46 kB)  – downloadable versions of recipes.

icon Certificate (53.19 kB) – to print off and hand out to those who successfully complete the course.

icon Children's Centre Additions (56.11 kB)  Guidance on how to adapt the sessions and recipes for use in children’s centres.

icon Special Schools Advice (20.87 kB)   Guidance for special schools on adapting the programme.

For schools who wish to continue to run courses with support from HC3S, please contact
hc3s.support@hants.gov.uk

Useful websites for food safety:
http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/keepingfoodsafe/germwatch/  
http://www.food.gov.uk/safereating/hyg/germwatch/#h_4 http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/gwschool.pdf.