Hi, I’m Katie Kimball
Raising Healthy Families
Helping families raise confident, capable future adults with practical life skills that start at the kitchen table
It was wayyyyy back in 2009 when I started Kitchen Stewardship, about 3 months after I learned the answer to, “What in the world IS a blog?” 😉
Back then I helped families stay healthy without going crazy, balancing their precious time, budget, family’s nutrition, and care for the environment. (Right, no conflicts or tension there!)
Then those families shared that they struggled because their parents never taught them to cook…and I realized that moms uncomfortable in the kitchen are also not going to teach their own kids to cook. The cycle would continue.
As an educator and a mom of 4, I thought: “I can help parents with that problem!”
The Kids Cook Real Food eCourse was born, and over time that idea of kids cooking went from the little sister of Kitchen Stewardship to the main enchilada. I was “the national voice of healthy kids cooking” and then…I did this thing entrepreneurs do. I kept having ideas.
My team and I started the #LifeSkillsNow summer camp to serve our families with MORE life skills beyond the kitchen, enlisting hundreds of other experts to create workshops for kids and teens.
I interviewed even more experts on the Healthy Parenting Handbook podcast. I wrote a book called The Picky Eater Playbook and created another online cooking course, Teens Cook Real Food.
Eventually I looked around and realized that I’d outgrown both my websites, and Raising Healthy Families was born!
Explore Katie’s Brands
Why I Created Kids Cook Real Food
Back in 2015, as a mom of 4 little ones, I hit this point where I was too busy and too stressed out to even think about inviting my kids to help me in the kitchen. But…I needed help so I could stop being so busy and spend time enjoying my children.
For the good of my whole family, it was time to teach my kids to cook.
Even though I love cooking myself, sometimes having my kids in the kitchen was as painful as doing crafts and finding glitter on everything two months later.
But I didn’t want my kids leaving for college not knowing how to cut a vegetable and ending up relying on frozen dinners the whole time!
I gave myself many pep talks so I’d remember how important it was, and once I began to see the fruits of my labor, I realized I needed to share our methods with more people.
That’s why I created the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse, and then ultimately 10 years later decided to also create Teens Cook Real Food.
Remember Who Taught You to Cook?
I have fleeting memories of my grandmother’s kitchen on our yearly summer visit – my curious face peering over the high counter at the magic her skilled hands were performing with dough and a rolling pin in a cloud of flour.
She would bring the little bits of leftover pie dough down to the table so I could reach, teaching me how to form them into my own cinnamon-sugared creations, impossibly flaky and sweet on my tongue.
Later as I learned to feed my own family, it was my grandmother who again toiled for hours teaching me to can tomatoes, peeling each one so that they were the ultimate perfection-in-a-jar for piping hot chili in February or an easy slow cooker meal on a busy school night.
A few years back when the “clutter,” as my Papa called it, was being donated, all the pie-making and canning supplies left the house.
She’s too old to bother with that sort of thing anymore, he says.
When I saw the tiny pie tins in the box, my breath caught in my throat and all the memories rushed back as crisply as the apples in my favorite pie.
The legacy of from-scratch cooking and the joy of feeding my family well was passed down from my grandma to my mom, then to me, and I’m ever grateful.
But I know it’s not always this way, especially for our young generation.
What If No One Teaches Our Kids to Cook?
Like a lot of moms these days, you may have had to teach yourself to cook. It’s a tough culture to live in, with Sara Lee and Mrs. Stouffer offering to do all the hard work for us at the expense of fresh foods, health, and the demise of family dinners.
Cooking is becoming a lost art, replaced by fast food, frozen dinners and boxed mixes – with disastrous consequences.
It’s time to raise adults who can cook.
This young generation may be the first NOT to outlive their parents’ generation, and the “diseases of civilization” are out of control: obesity, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension and autoimmune diseases get diagnosed in younger age groups than ever before.
We are a sick nation, and it’s time to make a change.
Teens Cook Real Food is coming very soon! Sign up for the waitlist to be the first to hear the announcement.
Tune in to the Healthy Parenting Handbook Podcast
The Healthy Parenting Connector by Kids Cook Real Food was a dynamic video series connecting parents who want to raise healthy kids with the experts who have the information they need. After 5 years, it became the podcast The Healthy Parenting Handbook.
Through interviews with pediatricians like Elisa Song, MD, authors like Jessica Lahey and Julie Lythcott-Haims, and other professionals (even Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller) plus food demos with the Kids Cook Real Food kids, you’ll increase your knowledge, be inspired to make healthy changes, and have the practical tips with which to do it.
Bringing a message of hope and empowerment to parents, The Healthy Parenting Handbook creates confidence, connection and creativity for families every week wherever you listen to podcasts. Catch archived episodes of the videos on YouTube.
View the latest episode and sign up for skimmable show notes.
Katie Kimball Talks Healthy Parenting in the Media
Katie has been featured on an internationally viewed talk show, local television in 6+ cities, 100s of podcasts and even a few magazines and newspapers (yes, print still existed!).
She had the privilege to speak to a few hundred health practitioners in a speaking competition – here’s her 5-minute speech, which took the top prize!
In 2020, Katie was honored to speak on a TEDx stage…except that it was 2020, and the event was postponed.
As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, Katie filmed the talk herself, because the message of the #KidsMealRevolution is TOO important to wait, and parents needed it NOW, while the pandemic was still interrupting their routines. Here’s the talk:
TEDxBismarck 2021: What if Kids Never Build Critical Thinking Skills?
One year later, the event happened live and in person! Here’s the talk that Katie gave about building critical thinking in kids:
If you can’t view the video above, head over to TED.com to see it. This talk is owned by TED and used with permission via the Creative Commons license.
Since 2020, the Raising Healthy Families team has provided free virtual summer camps for kids and teens, and in 2022 the #LifeSkillsNow summer camp series was born. Dozens of camp leaders in many disciplines – finances, entrepreneurship, gardening, maintenance, and more – teach short workshops to help families instill important life skills in their kids. Find out more about #LifeSkillsNow here.
It’s been an amazing adventure and an honor to work with so many families – and I don’t think we’re all the way to the summit yet!
Katie has also been trained as a picky eating expert and runs the Picky Eater Playbook Club (P.E.P. Club), a membership for parents to get education and a game plan to banish picky eating from their homes. Sign up for her free Picky Eating Challenge to learn more.
Katie’s TEDx Talk in Hartford: Picky Eating Isn’t About The Food
This is the talk that all parents of picky eaters (from now on to be known as “learning to eat”) need to hear:
If you can’t view the video above, head over to TED.com to see it. This talk is owned by TED and used with permission via the Creative Commons license.
A mom of 4 kids from Michigan, Katie Kimball is a published author, a Certified Stress Mastery Educator, certified in the SOS Feeding method (for picky eaters), a trained speaker through Bo Eason’s Personal Story Power, and a certified speaker coach through Thought Leader.
