Mark Bittman on food and all things related.

When you argue, as I frequently do, that cooking has the potential to help us deal with many of our dietary problems, you often elicit a kind of “I don’t care, I hate cooking” response in addition to the expected “I don’t have time.” And that’s fine; cooking isn’t the only route to eating better, and besides, those who hate cooking, or can’t make the time for it, may be lucky enough to have someone else cook for them. As long as they wash the dishes.

But it pays to remember that it’s been 40 years or more since cooking went out of style for most Americans, and that a positive approach to it — one that encourages cooking and counters the ongoing marketing surge that helped make it seem so “unnecessary” — could help to change matters. And although that kind of approach can be effective with anyone (I’m constantly meeting people who began cooking in their 30s and 40s, for example), it’s bound to be most effective with kids, who haven’t yet been fully brainwashed to believe that there are better ways to spend their time than cooking — like watching television, for example!

Children are probably more likely to develop healthier eating habits if their parents cook, and there are countless reasons it pays to cook for your kids, though for the moment I’ll leave that argument to others. It’s also true that one of the few benefits of food television has been to increase kids’ interest in food and even in cooking, and I frequently meet 7- and 10-year-olds who actually spend time in the kitchen, with or without their parents. But food TV rarely provides direct cooking instructions; watching cooking has become hip, but actually cooking has a long way to go.

Enter ChopChop, a magazine founded in 2010 by the Boston-area food writer Sally Sampson, which bills itself as “The Fun Cooking Magazine for Families,” but is clearly aimed at kids. Last week, ChopChop was named “publication of the year” by the James Beard Foundation. It would have gotten my vote; it glorifies simple food and the ease with which it can be prepared.



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Sampson says she wanted to address obesity but “didn’t have the skills to do health care.” So she thought of creating a publication that would encourage pediatricians to prescribe cooking, which would seem to be among the best measures a doctor could take to encourage good health in young patients. That idea became ChopChop, whose goal is to get kids to cook.

The magazine has grown to a circulation of 500,000, with 20 percent printed in Spanish. About 50 percent of the print run is sent to subscribers; the rest is given away at pediatricians’ offices and, says Sampson, “wherever else you find kids.” (The American Academy of Pediatrics reviews each issue before it goes to print.) There are no ads, although there are sponsors (the biggest is the New Balance Foundation) and, as you’ve probably guessed, ChopChop is a nonprofit.

The profits will accrue to the future of cooking. What makes ChopChop so great is not only Sampson’s choice of subject, appealing and respectful design and language, bright colors and surprisingly sophisticated food photography; it’s her (and her editors’) choice of recipes.

If you say “kids’ cooking magazine” you might expect cute little cookies or cutouts of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Not here. The current issue features a parfait of yogurt, fruit and granola (10 minutes); banana cream pie smoothie (no sugar; 5 minutes); caramelized onions (I mean, why not?); wraps with beet-and-carrot slaw; a slew of one-bowl meals (Sampson calls these “gateway recipes”); directions for making sprouts; fruit “kebabs”; and what amounts to real Jell-O (100 percent fruit juice plus gelatin). Oh, and garlicky vinaigrette in a jar. Some of these are what you might call “assemblies” rather than recipes; ingredients are outlined and combined in whatever way might appeal to the cook; others include numerous ideas for variations.

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The idea, says Sampson, is that “every ingredient is available in your average grocery store, and nothing is expensive.” Nor are the recipes dumbed down: “We don’t think there is kid food versus adult food. We just look for simple and delicious recipes for real food. And other than canned beans, canned tomatoes and the like, everything is fresh.”

Anyone who’s looked at my own work about cooking over the last 20 years will know why this appeals so mightily to me: I believe it’s the way people learn to cook. By understanding building blocks of various dishes, you can become familiar with techniques and principles without even being conscious of it.

Sampson obviously gets this. (We don’t know each other, but we’ve acknowledged being kindred spirits, in writing about cooking at least.) “Once you know how to make a peach smoothie you can make any other smoothie. Once you can make something with broccoli, you can make it with kale. Cooking is not so much a matter of right or wrong but of learning what you like.” And kids learn about things they like by being exposed to them; they’re unlikely to encounter beet and carrot slaw wraps in their daily lives unless they see ChopChop.

In fact, most noncooking grown-ups could develop a decent kitchen repertory by referring to ChopChop for a year. And since the magazine’s youngest readers (Sampson says the target audience is 5 through 12) will need adult supervision and perhaps even help — you’re not going to let a kid slice a pile of onions alone, obviously — there will be intergenerational learning going on.

If you ask me, Sampson has reached her goal: she’s doing preventive medicine. Because cooking reduces obesity and reducing obesity reduces disease. Get a couple of hundred thousand kids cooking now and who knows what might happen in 20 years?