CAFS Mixing Bowl Care Garden

Mixing Bowl - a cooking program for teens catering for 12 to 18-year-olds in the Ballarat and surrounding community who are disengaged or attending part-time school. The overall goal is to offer youth an opportunity to learn basic cooking and gardening skills. The skills will help young people learn important life-skills of cooking and gardening. This program is hands-on learning and the produce used for the meal preparation will be organically grown on the public gardens.

Teens will learn job-ready skills that can support employment opportunities such as providing nutritious, balanced and value-for-money meals and organic gardening techniques including;: ordering food, planning menus according to a fixed budget and following guidelines on nutrition and healthy eating, complying with food safety legislation. The Mixing Bowl program promotes the lifetime skill of healthy cooking. Youth who lack healthy cooking knowledge may rely on packaged foods or prepared foods containing questionable nutrition value. A kitchen is a learning lab for the teens that can involve all of their senses.