KEIGHLEY families have been out and about getting active while learning how to find and cook healthy food.

Healthy food was a key component of the four-week Firepot! programme run by outdoors experts Get Out More CIC.

Children, their parents and carers visited woodlands, allotments and parks, and enjoyed digging up potatoes, collecting eggs and picking blackberries as they learned where food came from.

Rachael Nield from the Healthy Growth Initiative used surplus food donated by the Co-op to help families make simple delicious meals and juices.

Firepot! was funded by regeneration group Keighley Big Local which employs Get Out More to run regular play activities in communities alongside the River Worth between Ingrow and Stockbridge.

Get Out More director Annie Berrington said: “We wanted to help children enjoy healthy food by making foraging, cooking and eating part of the fun activities during the outdoor play programmes.

“We have seen children expand their food choices and get a good tasty meal to give them energy to enjoy activities like den building and tree climbing.”

One of Big Local’s aims is to encourage local people to value the green spaces on their doorstep.

One parent, Suzanne Oddy, said: “My son always comes out of the sessions blurting out stories of painting with berries, foraging and den building, usually smiling ear-to-ear.

“Attending the family cooking course was a valuable reminder to me that it’s so easy for us to get out there and do these things ourselves, and we don’t have to travel further than our local area to do it.”

Firepot! was part of Healthy Holidays, a government-funded programme to promote activities with a food component for school-age children deprived areas of the UK.

‘Holiday hunger’ has been recognised as an issue which affects low-income families across the UK and impacts on learning when children return to school in September.

Big Local coordinator Shaun O’Hare said: “Firepot! has helped children to enjoy fresh natural foods and develop skills in how to cook them into tasty recipes that they can make at home.

“Outdoor play builds up a healthy appetite and we believe that the provision of healthy food as part of the programme had a positive impact on energy level, attitudes and behaviour during the sessions themselves.”

Mr O’Hare wanted to thank the Give Bradford funding group for supporting Firepot!.

He said: “We explored what we can do as a community when we change attitudes towards food.

“Hopefully we can continue and build on this work well past the parameters of the grant-funded summer activities.”

Annie Berrington said her team had set out to help children enjoy healthy food by making, foraging, cooking and eating part of the fun activities they enjoy doing the previous outdoor play programmes.

She said: “Inspiring children to expand their food choices and understand more about where food comes from, what healthy eating means and how food, mood and energy are linked

“In our work we have seen children educate their parents about picking and cooking with freely available ingredients such as wild garlic and blackberries.

"Wild cooking has been the start of a wider interest for their child in food in general and a more open attitude towards new ingredients such as 'anything green'!

“The link with the families immediate environment has created positive perceptions of outdoor space further developed a sense of community.”