Healthy cooking for children

The book “Za otroke kuhajmo zdravo” (Healthy cooking for Children) is something special: because it is the only manual on alimentation of children from their earliest age to adulthood, because it takes into consideration all the principles of healthy and Slovene traditional food, because it also offers a variegated range of menus for schools, kindergartens and for households and because with a book you also get a very useful floppy disc. And there is something even more special about this book – its author Emilija PAVLIČ.

Emilija Pavli~ was head of alimentation at the Semedela kindergarten near Koper for 25 years, where she was taking care of the alimentation of 800 children. Cook by profession, she continued with her education and successfully finished the Catering Industry Management School and obtained the title of Food and Beverage Manager. Two years previous to her retirement, she passed the examination for Master of cooking at the Slovene Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “I started writing the book out of protest,” says Emilija. “I introduced menus without meat years ago, and it caused hue and cry. I proved that meals without meat can be as healthy as those with meat and have even more quality and taste. I based my cooking on old recipes that were kept by our mothers for centuries. I didn’t think it was right that we put so much effort in protecting our land, our language, while we were letting our traditional food slowly disappear. We are increasingly more addicted to foreign literature, to foreign alimentation.”

After the conferment of two shiny fair prizes at the Festival of Upbringing and Education in Celje which included also the fair Everything for the Child and Family, she was unable to hide her emotion; “I am very happy to have gathered enough courage and money to come to this fair. I am one of the rare Slovenian women who have exposed their work to evaluation. But if a person stands for her work, her vision, it gives her courage. I was not frightened by criticism and I went for an expensive project of publishing the book by myself. The acknowledgements and many praises confirm what I believed in from the very beginning. It is a wonderful feeling.”

"This book brings us the scent, the taste, the feel of Slovenia, the land of milk and fruit and salad, of olives and fish. Emilija Pavlič cares about the health of children. She knows that their health depends upon good food; simple, varied, suitable food, using fresh ingredients, prepared with love and skill. She knows that ‘children have the right to healthy and nicely served food’. She has many years of experience in producing such food. Schools and parents everywhere can learn from the sensible advice in this book." - Milena B. Poklič, From the review at the prize conferment in Celje, published in Večer, April 2001

Throughout Europe, too many children are becoming obese and being put at risk of ailment, through eating the wrong food. If this continues, we will spoil their lives and place great strain on our public health service. As Emilija shows, producing healthy food does not cost more than the wrong food.

"I like her phrase ‘homemade food contains a pinch of your heritage’. If you buy fresh ingredients locally you can have food that nourishes the child, sustains the local economy and reflects the local tradition. Emilija’s principles of cooking, drawn from her experience in Slovenia, can be applied in any country, thus sustaining the rich variety of the world’s cuisine and the health of children everywhere." - Professor Michael Dower, Former Director of the Countryside Comission, European Council for the Village and Small Town

O AVTORICI IZ MEDIJEV:

• https://www.primorske.si/plus/sobota/emilija-pavlic-ce-ne-bo-zdrave-mladine-ne-bo-pokoj
• https://www.24ur.com/magazin/emilija-pavlic.html
• https://www.bodieko.si/emilija-pavlic-kar-je-dobro-za-odrasle-ni-vedno-dobro-za-otroke
• https://www.caszazemljo.si/trajnostno/priljubljena-kuharica-emilija-pavlic-poletni-vitamini-so-dota-za-pozimi.html
• https://arhiv.onaplus.delo.si/emilija-pavlic-kruh-pecem-sama-da-vem-kaj-jem/