Family cooking expert joins Simply Veg campaign to help families get more fresh produce into their kids
Veg Power, the not-for-profit alliance to increase vegetable consumption across the UK, announced yesterday (25 May) that it has strengthened its Simply Veg expert panel with the addition of ‘The Batch Lady’ – otherwise known as Suzanne Mulholland.
Mullholland’s involvement will include sharing her expertise and knowledge on the topic of batch cooking to help parents prepare nutritious meals without spending hours in the kitchen.
Simply Veg has been developed in conjunction with a panel of experts to support all parents and carers to get more veg into their kids by providing the latest advice and simple ideas to help reduce the impact on families’ budgets and encourage veg acceptance by children.
Commenting on her involvement in Simply Veg, Mullholland said: “I’m a huge fan of Veg Power’s mission and I am delighted to be involved in this campaign. I have lots of practical low cost, fuss-free tips and recipes about how to add more veg into your family meals, while still ensuring that everyone around the table is happy. I’m all about the freezer and using frozen veg as its always on hand, saving both money and waste. Making meals that are packed full of veg that can be frozen in advance and grabbed out on a busy night is always a winner for anyone with a busy life.”
Dan Parker, Veg Power chief executive, said: “We know that children aren’t eating enough veg and with the cost-of-living crisis the situation has only worsened. We’re delighted to have another expert on board that shares our mission of making it as easy as possible for parents and carers to prepare affordable veg-packed meals that their families will love.”
As part of its collection of resources, Veg Power is currently working on a comprehensive, expert-led ‘instruction’ manual for parents and carers which will be available by the end of the year online, on social channels and as a booklet. It will be full of tips and tools from nutrition, child psychology, neurodiversity and cookery experts/chefs.
Other members of Simply Veg’s expert panel include nutritionists Dr Laura Wyness RNutr, Dr Glenys Jones RNutr, Charlotte Radcliffe RNutr, Zoe Griffiths RNutr, and dietician Priya Tew, food writer Bee Wilson, sensory education specialist Kim McGowan, Geneticist & President of the British Dietetic Association - Dr Giles Yeo MBE, children’s food psychologist Dr Clare Holley, former BBC Blue Peter gardener - Chris Collins and chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Ching He Huang MBE, Bettina Campolucci Bordi, Tom Hunt and ITV Chef Shivi Ramoutar. To ensure the resource provides information and advice most relevant and useful to families, the expert panel will be on hand to answer questions posed by parents/carers via its ‘Ask the Expert’ function accessible via the Simply Veg website.
Veg Power, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, was founded by the Food Foundation, Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sir John Hegarty and Baroness Boycott to turn around vegetable consumption in the UK. It runs creative initiatives to engage, inspire and motivate people to eat more veg and create life-long good food habits. To change children’s perceptions of veg, Veg Power runs the award-winning Eat Them to Defeat Them campaign. Since the campaign debuted in January 2019, it has led to sales of nearly 1.4 billion additional children’s portions of vegetables worth £132m.
Veg Power is funded by Abbey View Produce, Barfoots, Bayer Crop Science, Coop Foods, Dole, EVG Europe, Fresca, Greenyard, Gs, Hazera Seeds UK, Monaghan Mushrooms, Ocado, Produce World, Riviera Produce, SAKATA, Sainsbury’s, Staples, Tesco, Waitrose and Westfalia Fruit Group.