April 2025 - Kids in the Kitchen Class 2
It was a fun week at Merkle Wellness Solutions with group classes on Tuesday and Thursday!
Tuesday I hosted the second Kids in the Kitchen Nutrition and Cooking Class, in this session we learned how to make pizza from scratch!
We had a lot of fun and students expressed their creativity in what they topped their pizza with (including some odd toppings like strawberries). Students also learned how to make yeast dough from scratch and got to bring home fresh dough to share their new skills with family.
Here are the highlights of cooking skills introduced:
Mixing yeast dough and its components (flour, water, salt, yeast).
Kneading yeast dough by hand
Shaping fresh dough into a pizza and ideal vessels for making pizza (cast iron for the most versatile pan or a pizza stone).
Assembling a yummy pizza including corn meal on your pan to prevent sticking, olive oil on the crust to prevent sogginess, then layering classic pizza toppings: tomato sauce, cheese and desired toppings.
In addition to the cooking skills, I introduced the topic of macronutrients and how each macronutrient impacts our body when we eat them. We tied macronutrients into the food groups we learned about in the first session and identified macronutrients present in our pizza (dough = carb, pepperoni = protein and olive oil = fat).
Here are the basics we learned about macronutrients:
Carbohydrates are a quick source of fuel and your brains preferred source of fuel.
Protein helps build and repair muscles and supports your immune system
Fat help absorb fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), aids hormone production, stores energy and protects organs.
Overall it was a really constructive and fun class but photos were lacking this time, whoops!
Also this week, but not related to the kids class, I had the privilege to be asked by a local weight loss group to attend their meeting. They specifically wanted to learn about carbohydrates and how they impact weight loss/healthy eating patterns. We spent the beginning of the session talking about all of the macronutrients then spent the second half of the session talking about carbohydrates specifically. This group was so much fun to work with and I am thankful for the invite to join their discussion.
