Kate Percy Launches Campaign To Enable Every Young Person To Cook 5 Healthy Meals Before They Leave Home.

Hello everyone! I am SUPER excited to announce the launch of #Cook5withKatePercy. See below for a little preview of our press release with all the details!

Kate Percy aims to revolutionise the health of the next generation with her new #Cook5withKatePercy campaign which enables and inspires young people to cook 5 simple, nourishing recipes before they leave home as well as deliver a basic understanding of how to eat for better physical and mental wellbeing.

Diet-related disease is putting an intolerable strain on our nation’s health and finances, especially since the pandemic. 40% of 10 year olds are either overweight or obese. According to a recent study, 1 in 4 Brits can only cook just three recipes from scratch*. The consequence? Young people don’t pick up cooking skills at their mother’s (or indeed father’s!) knee. The addictive relationship with processed and ultra-processed foods begins, as well as a movement away from ‘breaking bread’ at table together as a family. Over 50% of our nation’s diet is now processed or ultra-processed; resulting in problems with gut health, mental wellbeing and weight management.

#Cook5withKatePercy addresses this problem by making cooking bite-size and accessible with the Power of 5 concept:  5 recipes, 5 key nutrition basics and 5 cooking hacks over the course of 5 sessions provide a range of achievable skills, tips and tricks to get young people started on a healthy cooking journey which will last a lifetime. Students invite someone they would like to share their meal with for the final session. 

“Please don’t write these children off” says Kate Percy “Children pick up cooking skills and understand nutrition basics very quickly if they are just given the chance. Many of the amazing year 7’s at Merchants Academy had never cooked before but after 4 sessions they are chopping veggies like a pro! And they’ve got their heads around the washing up too! It’s amazing to see them jump at the opportunity to try new foods when involved in the preparation and cooking of them”.

 “We’re also not talking about cupcakes and cookies, #Cook5WithKatePercy is about enabling and inspiring young people to cook proper food; everyday meals to support a healthy lifestyle. It’s something we’ve refined over many years working in many different types of schools. The aim is to provide a foundation for young people to connect with food so they can make healthier food choices and gain the skills and the confidence to enjoy cooking for the rest of their lives.”

Recipes are designed to cater for different ethnicities and cultures, ranging from how to cook eggs, healthy pancakes, soups, stir fries, rice and pasta to a classic burger, a ragu, kofta, falafel, vegetarian curries, dahl, pad Thai noodles and fajitas.

Example recipe - Risi e Bisi (Risotto with Peas)

'School Cooking Revolution' part of Government's Food Strategy 

In their ‘leveling up’ white paper, the government have committed £5 million to launch a “school cooking revolution”. One of the initiatives is for every child leaving secondary school to know at least six basic recipes that will support healthy living into childhood. More information will be forthcoming in the Government’s Food Strategy White Paper.

Kate Percy will be running two further #Cook4withKatePercy pilot schemes at Fulham Cross Girls School and Southfields Academy in London in May before the national roll-out in September.

A purpose-led company with a mission to revolutionise family and child health, Kate Percy’s  offers a range of healthy food products, recipe books and nutritional educational programmes.

“We have food education at our heart. As a mum of three, active lifestyle promoter and business entrepreneur, I discovered how making better food choices completely changed how I and my family felt after upgrading our diet to support my husband’s marathon training. This inspired me to write my first best-selling cookbook (Go Faster Food, Penguin, 2009) and to help others discover that magic link between what you eat, good energy, vitality and happiness. It’s what I call Enerjoy!”

Just look at the concentration...

Sam Williamson, Principal of Merchant’s Academy, comments:

“I am over the moon that we have had the opportunity to work with Kate piloting her Cook 5 with Kate Percy initiative,. Kate’s positivity and energy are infectious and our young people have loved learning to cook family recipes from scratch with her.

Equipping our young people with basic skills to enable them to lead healthy and happy lives has never been more of a priority and one that we are equally passionate about at Merchants Academy. More of the same please Kate!”

We'd love everyone to get involved with #Cook5WithKate. Let us know what favourite 5 recipes you'd like to pass onto the younger generation.  

Share the love, come into Kate’s kitchen, let's cook up some #Enerjoy!