“Mummy, it’s still bleeding!” I sometimes hear this when I cook fish with my son, because we occasionally go and catch the underwater animals ourselves. And there’s a reason behind my madness. How do you teach a child that a sausage wasn’t conjured up in the factory and that chicken nuggets were once animals? It’s not that easy – these days, many of us have lost touch with nature. But even if you don’t live on a farm, you can still show your child the truth behind our food. For example, you can buy your fish straight from a fishery. The one near us is open once a week. When we buy our fish, it’s caught fresh and killed on site. Not that I like seeing that. And children don’t necessarily have to be there when the animal’s life is brought to an end. But it gives them an idea of where their food comes from. On a survival training course in Finland, we were even given the chance to throw the fish hook into the lake with our 6-year-old. Our guide then showed us how to kill the fish by the waterside and cook it on the fire. Although our son didn’t eat the fish we cooked on the fire, he can’t wait to go fishing again. We want to give him the opportunity to learn about where food comes from. We’ll leave it to him to decide whether or not he wants to eat it.
