Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

My dad introduced me to the kitchen from a small age. His main intention was something else. He did not introduce me just because I can learn cooking, also because I was so fussy about eating my food. I did not like eating at all. I used to cry a lot while eating. The things which I used to like were all junk foods. That’s the time he thought of introducing me to the kitchen so that I can learn cooking and at the same time start eating self-cooked food and also understand the healthy nutrition in the food. Let me tell you how my dad made me cook healthier food.

First he asked to select a recipe from a recipe book or he told me that I can search from the internet too if I wanted. I started looking the recipe book for an hour and short listed few recipes which I thought would taste good. Most of the recipes were sweets, two of them were with chicken and the couple was different recipes. Then my dad made me understand that sweets are just for dessert, let’s start with some stomach full lunch. Then I showed him a recipe with fried chicken. He agreed to it but told me that we will make a healthier version of it so that I can stay fit. I totally agreed to it.

We started our dish but did not use the fried chicken. My dad told me that fried chicken has lots of oil and is not good for health. He made me grill with some onions, red and green peppers on it. I started to grill and once the chicken was done I put it aside. It took a lot of time. After that made me cut some salad. He asked me not to have bread made of all-purpose flour. He told that instead shop made he will make bread made of wheat. He made the whole bread himself. I just helped him in giving stuffs to his hand. Once all the food was done I called mom and we three sat for lunch.

I was more excited for this lunch because I did lots of work to prepare this. Once I started eating I couldn’t stop. I kept on eating all the vegetables, chicken and the handmade bread. All were so tasty. At that time I did not make any fuss while eating because all the food was prepared by me with a lot of hard work. That day my dad made me realize that if I start cooking myself I can start eating everything with healthy nutrition in it. It continued for a while and I started to mix and match all the healthy things in my diet.

That day I realized that parents make such effort in cooking and we kids don’t even think about it and make so much fuss while eating. Once we start cooking we will surely like the food. According to me every kid should start cooking and eat healthy food. This will make them stay fit and the learning they learned from their dad will leave them with unforgettable memories. So the kids start cooking but in a healthier way.

As a concluding note for all dads out there start spending some quality time with your baby girls and help them grow up with the changing world day after day, and also teach them the basics of life by helping them share there childhood dreams with you.

Thank you for reading.

Please feel free to comment and also any valuable comment be appreciated on the topic. Visit my blog,

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.