When it comes to cooking, there aren't many kids who at one time or another don't get curious about what goes on in the kitchen. It is not at all uncommon for a boy or girl to want to try their hand at preparing a meal or dessert, and parents should be very encouraging about it, as knowing how to cook is a life skill that the kids will use forever. It's also a good time to teach them about food safety at home.

The great thing about teaching about food safety is that it allows you to work in so many other topics. For younger kids, spark their interest in chemistry by telling them about how surfactants, the things in cleaning products that allows them to penetrate dirt and grease and lift it away, work. Let them try cleaning the same grease with plain water, then with your favorite cleaning spray. If you have a microscope (you can get them fairly cheaply), swab a dirty countertop and let the kids see all the microscopic beasties crawling around in the goo.

For older kids, you can set up a biological experiment. Get some Petri dishes and nutrient agar, and then swab various kitchen surfaces before and after cleaning after a big cooking session. Help them identify the various colonies of bacteria that grow in the agar solution.

Pay attention to your kids' interests and try to tailor the science activities to what they like. You are the best judge of what will work to get your message across.

Many kids won't initially want to do the dirty work of cleaning up after they cook. The kitchen piled high with dirty pots and pans after a kid cooking session is one of the oldest jokes in the book, but it can be a thing of the past if you take the time to teach your children that cleaning up isn't just the polite thing to do €¦ practicing food safety at home could also save their lives and the lives of their diners!