5 Ways to Serve the Planet
Cultivate your creativity, adaptability, and flexibility.
"We may be facing a crisis, but we are mainly living an opportunity to expand our vision, to learn new skills, and to develop new perspectives." —Chef Neelam
Five ways Bliss Belly Kitchen is teaching children to care for the planet.
Our classes utilize locally sourced ingredients, fresh from farmers. We help you reduce your carbon footprint, respect life, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Our cooking is vegetarian, with lots of plant-based proteins. You learn to make healthy, crave worthy food that tastes delicious that you'll want to eat again and again.
We teach breathing, yoga and meditation at the beginning of each session. These practices empower you to reconnect to your own source of "bliss" within. Then we are able to connect to Mother Nature with reverence.
We teach children to cook based on these principles, inculcating life long habits of respect and reverence to mother earth. The ripple effect is that everyone in the family can develop environmentally friendly cooking habits.
We offer classes based on Ayurvedic culinary principals, which acknowledge the connection between the body, mind, and gut health. We help you to reconnect with your mind and body and to be more conscious of what you eat.
A Note on Food, Kid Tools, and Awareness
Eat fresh food! Freshly prepared fruits, vegetables, and grains help any child to thrive. Pre-prepared foods, frozen foods, and canned foods have lost their prana, or life-force energy. When a vegetable is as close to being freshly picked as possible, it delivers the maximum amount of nutrients, energy, and just plain goodness.
Don’t have time to cook or prepare fresh meals? That’s why it’s important to get the kids involved in meal prep. Children love to chop vegetables, and even children as young as 2 or 3 can get started. There are child-safe knives too. Here’s an example of an excellent knife that I love to use in my clases. It has a big handle for small hands to grasp, and the zigzag blade will not hurt them, while being sharp enough to chop potatoes and carrots.
With a little organization and training, your children can be your assistants in the kitchen and grow into being full Yogi Chefs themselves! I have students who are cooking dinner for their families once a week or more, making sesame kale noodles, carrot ginger soup, and even apple pie!
Creating the time and space to train a child in the kitchen takes work, but the results are worth it, both long term and short term. You may be worried about running into a few spills, messes, or even cuts and burns in the kitchen, but when we practice breathing, we create awareness, and this mindful practice becomes our safety insurance.
Sharp knives, sharp minds.
You may have heard that it is dangerous to work with a dull knife in the kitchen. The extra effort to chop can actually cause accidents. Well, I ask you, what about a dull mind? How would that affect the results you’re creating in the kitchen? How many of you have cooked when your mind is distracted or you’re in a bad mood? It usually doesn’t turn out so well. That’s why we practice breathing before each cooking class, so our minds are clear and we can be the best chefs possible.
Take our Happy Healthy Yogi Kid Quiz to learn more about healthy living and eating according to Bliss Belly Kitchen.