There are so many benefits that owning a Thermomix has for kids.
There is no denying that a Thermomix is a wonderful addition to your kitchen. Despite the hefty price, it is worth every dollar. You get what you pay for. Like solar, it is an initial investment that pays itself off over time. After that, you save money on electricity bills. With a Thermomix, there is the initial purchasing cost but the savings in groceries are notable.
It’s no secret that I dislike cooking. I feel like it gets in the way of what I want to be doing. Fun things, like decluttering the house, mowing the lawn or planting new species in my garden. I mean I know it’s important and all. We need to eat to survive. I just don’t enjoy the process, the cleaning up and the mental load that accompanies cooking.
Admittedly, I don’t hate it as much anymore now that we have our Thermomix. I always seem to be cooking treats for school pick-up to share with other mums and their hungry kids. If we run out of snacks, it’s easier to bake something rather than drive to the store. It’s somehow made life easier, especially the food part.
I’ve previously mentioned my initial thoughts, how to afford one, food allergies, 35 foods I no longer buy, and a Thermomix review. This time around, I’d like to explore how a Thermomix can make a real difference in the life of you and your kids.
There Are 6 Reasons That I Recommend A Thermomix For Kids:
1. Helps Motivate Your Kids To Cook
I was surprised with how much the arrival of a Thermomix motivated our kids to cook. They have always enjoyed being part of the process. They like standing up on stools and a chance to be involved.
The Thermomix has taken things to a new level though. Our eldest begs us to use it all the time. He is super motivated to cook delicious food. They like the appeal of a screen and being able to touch and swipe. Even our two-year-old can read ‘next,’ saying and pointing, asking if he can touch it.
Our boys love that they see results quickly. Thermomix can cook food fast. It’s perfect for kids who don’t like waiting, especially when they’re hungry after school and kindy.
Whether it is a gimmick or not, I figure that it doesn’t really matter. What matters most is that my children want to cook. The Thermomix makes cooking simple and accessible for all. It is exciting and fun. There is something about it that feels magic somehow. How does it do so many functions and turn ingredients into something delicious in just a few steps? It gives our boys a sense of pride and accomplishment when they create something that they can eat.
I love that the Thermomix motivates kids to want to get involved in the cooking process. Admittedly, sometimes I just want to cook by myself. I want to get it done so I can move out of the kitchen and do something else (like gardening or decluttering or going for a hike). My boys just want to be near me though. It doesn’t really matter what it is – they want to be close and do what I do. When I lower my expectations of what I want to achieve that day and the speed by which I do it and simply invite them to join me, they feel included and important.
2. Tackle Fussy Eating
A common struggle amongst parents is how to tackle fussy eating. When kids refuse to eat meals served up for dinner, it can become stressful. How on earth does a child who loved this last week (or even yesterday), not want it today? It’s incredibly frustrating.
I clearly remember arriving home from work one late afternoon. My hubby had been home with the boys and cooked peanut satay chicken skewers with quinoa. He couldn’t find the wooden skewers anywhere (I had recently found a different home for them during an organising blitz) so decided to put the chicken pieces separately on the plate.
My then four-year-old screamed, “I want them on skewers!” He proceeded to push the plate off the table with such ferocity that it landed several metres away. Satay sauce smeared the floor. Little pieces of quinoa and chicken were scattered across the room.
“Go to your room!” My husband yelled back, feeling totally over the day and regretting his decision to work part-time.
This scene is etched in my memory. While not great, it helps me know that I’m not alone. Feeding little ones is hard.
Since buying our Thermomix this year, we have found that it has helped with fussy eating with our kids. When they cook with us, they can see exactly what goes into our meals and snacks. It helps alleviate trust issues. It gives them the confidence to try new ingredients and foods.
One recipe we enjoy making on Cookidoo is broccoli stem falafel. It doesn’t sound like a dish most kids would be excited to eat but when our boys put each ingredient in themselves, they wanted to try it. Our eldest and youngest loved it (middle boy, not so much). It’s become a staple in our house. I love that it helps use up part of broccoli that doesn’t always get eaten by children and they can go out and collect parsley and coriander from our garden.
When we use the Thermomix, our boys eat more vegetables. They are happy to add virtually any ingredient in as long as they get to follow the steps and press next. They eat more fruit when making smoothies and yummy desserts.
I feel like they understand more of the effort that goes into cooking and they are more likely to eat the finished product. They don’t seem to waste as much. Our kids realise what ingredients are in the food they eat. They are surprised with how many spices are in meals like butter chicken and like the aroma it creates.
If you’re looking for help to tackle fussy eating in kids, Instagram pages like Feeding Littles and Kids Eat in Color are full of inspiration and ideas.
3. Develop Literacy Skills
I love that Thermomix helps to develop literacy skills in children. As a registered teacher, I am passionate about improving literacy skills. There are simple things that we can do as parents to develop this at home.
Cooking is a great way to develop literacy skills. This can be done with traditional cooking and a cookbook or recipe. I admit though, ever since we bought a Thermomix, our boys want to cook more and love reading on the screen. Our kids like reading step-by-step instructions and the names of ingredients. They enjoy typing and printing out labels to put on containers.
Our boys are getting more practice reading and learning how to follow procedures. They like using the search function. They are learning how to substitute ingredients whether it’s because we have run out or need to make it gluten-free. Sometimes we need to adjust the measurements for metric or if we are using a traditional recipe and converting it to use in the Thermomix.
It’s all valuable learning and it makes me so happy to watch. I love that my toddler can do simple steps and read simple words, my preschooler can do more of the steps and read a number of words, and my schoolboy can make virtually anything (with supervision) and read most of the words. They are developing a number of literacy skill that will help them in the classroom and in life.
4. Develop Numeracy Skills
The Thermomix can be a tool to develop numeracy skills in kids. When they get involved in cooking, they are measuring, estimating, and weighing. They learn about the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. They learn about fractions in cup measurements. Children learn about oven temperatures and which recipes call for different ones (and why).
Kids learn about substituting and the maths involved in this. They learn about the need to be accurate with measuring, mixing speeds and duration and temperatures, and what happens when we don’t follow the recipe properly.
We can have learning moments when comparing sugar content with a McCafe muffin versus a homemade muffin. We can compare the price between shop-bought caramelised popcorn and homemade. We can compare the price of double choc gluten-free biscuits from a supermarket with the ones we make at home. We can compare how many sausage rolls you can make at home for the price of one from a bakery. We can compare the price of rice flour from the supermarket versus milling your own rice.
With older children, you could take them shopping and show them the difference between buying two tines of condensed milk versus making your own if you were making salted caramel slice (one of our favourites!). The cost of buying these types of products instead of making them yourself really does add up. Home cooking enables you to be more self-sufficient and not have to run to the shop (or neighbours) every time you run out of an ingredient.
For those kids who love maths, you could get them to figure out how long it would take to recoup the cost of the Thermomix. It would make for some interesting calculations. I might give this problem to my eldest in a year or so and see what he comes up with.
You could help to set up a bake sale or lemonade stand out the front of your place. This would help your kids learn skills in planning, budgeting, pricing, adding money and giving change. It would develop confidence. You could decide what to spend the profits on. Spending time cooking together develops a range of numeracy skills.
5. Meal Planning
I often hear adults say that they wish they could be a kid again and not have anything to worry about. I beg to differ. There can be a lot of anxiety as a child. They have limited control over their days and their lives. Our boys like having a say in what gets cooked. It gives them more ownership and control. It is an area of their lives that we can include them in and allow them to have a voice. Enable your child to take an active role in menu planning for their week.
Allowing our kids to meal plan gives them more autonomy and choice, like their opinion matters. It counts. I have found that using a simple whiteboard (like this $4 Kmart one) can be good. I gave everyone a different colour whiteboard marker and let them choose one or two meals (the younger ones I scribed for them). It’s displayed on our fridge and we refer to it regularly. It takes the pressure off me to come up with ideas and trying to figure out what they will actually eat that week.
Cookidoo is a fabulous resource for meal planning. A six-month subscription is included in the purchase of a new TM6 Thermomix. You can subscribe after this for $69 AUD a year. You can meal plan by adding recipes to ‘My Week.’ This makes it easier to find what you need when you need to cook.
You can even select ingredients to buy from Woolworths and have them ready for Direct to Boot or delivery. For the reluctant cook or busy parent, this makes the whole shopping and cooking process that much easier. Admittedly, I haven’t tried this yet. We use Coles for our online deliveries and the idea of signing up to a new supermarket feels like too much work. I should give it a go!
6. Helps Develop Life Skills
Having a Thermomix in your kitchen helps to develop life skills in your kids. Having a knowledge of basic skills is useful.
They will leave our home as young adults, equipped with the knowledge, skills and experience they need to cook for themselves and a partner. Nowadays it’s more important than ever to teach boys to have these skills.
I’m so grateful that my husband learned to cook when he was a boy. As a teen, he enjoyed cooking and cooked a weekly meal for the family. He’d regularly cook desserts or muffins too. It enabled him to move out by himself and become independent. It’s made my life easier knowing that he is capable in the kitchen. It reduces the burden on me.
Often on weekends, I’ll be outside mowing the lawn, weeding the garden or shovelling dirt while hubby is inside with the kids and cooking up a storm. It’s a wonderful switch of roles for us and one that has helped us in our marriage.
Our boys like being trusted to come up with what to cook and allowed to take part. It helps to build confidence and develops time management skills.
The Thermomix timer is motivating to adults and children alike. We often look at the time remaining and see what we can do before it beeps. With a little encouragement, our kids help to clean up, put ingredients away, wash dishes by hand, stack or empty the dishwater, put away toys, tidy their room or set the table for dinner. It always works better if we race to complete one of these tasks too.
I’ve written before about how grateful I am to now have a Thermomix in our kitchen. I really do wish we had bought one many years ago. It would have been so much easier when I was suffering with acute morning sickness, managing the needs of a newborn and the baby puree stage. I know it would have taken off the pressure and enabled me to rest more. I could have been more present with my kids.
I always found it easy to permission give my husband to buy a tool for the shed, knowing that it would save money on not getting a tradie and save him time getting the job done. It was a no-brainer really. Tools are expensive but it was cheaper than getting in an expert.
For some reason, I struggled to give myself the same permission for buying a Thermomix. It seemed extravagant. I could make do with what I had. When my old mixer broke, I sourced one on Facebook Marketplace. When that broke too, I found one on my local Buy Nothing page. It was absolutely rubbish. The blades didn’t reach the bottom of the bowl, leaving unmixed ingredients sitting there. It was super frustrating. I went and threw it in the bin.
I looked at purchasing a good mixer. They were super expensive but figured I deserved it. I asked my friend what she thought of her Kitchenaid stand mixer. She said it was great, but honestly, she barely used it since getting her Thermomix. She pleaded with me to just buy one. “Mel, you’ll just love it!”
Hubby and I chatted and decided that it was time. Now that I have one, I find it strange that as women, we find it hard to justify an expensive kitchen tool. We use it multiple times a day compared to an expensive shed tool that might get used occasionally on projects. The rest of the year it sits there, collecting dust.
I wonder why we struggle to give ourselves permission to buy a tool that could save us so much time and money. I want to talk more about this. To help women and families see that a tool that helps the cooking process is simply invaluable.
I think that most men would be happy to spend money on an appliance that enables their partner (and indeed, themselves) to reduce the time that they need to spend in the kitchen. I feel that a Thermomix can make a big difference in families.
There are so many reasons that a Thermomix is great for kids. I especially like that ours helps reduce the stress of meal planning and family mealtimes.
If you want to find a Thermomix consultant to help you, I’ve created a directory here. I hope that it will be a useful tool to connect you to a consultant in your area. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or if you would like to be added.
Keen to make a purchase? I now have a referral link. I am still not affiliated with or sponsored by Thermomix. Anyone can apply for a link (even you!). It simply means that I receive a $50 voucher for the Mix Shop in return for spreading the word. This would be a lovely bonus for our family (but not expected by any means).
You can still add the name of a consultant listed above to support them too, without it costing you any extra. It might just make their day.
I’d love to connect with you online. Come say hi over on Instagram or Facebook.
Melanie Wegener
(Please note that I’m not sponsored by Thermomix. I paid full price for mine. I remain unaffiliated so I can hopefully be a source of trustworthy information and unbiased perspective.)
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