How do we understand quality in our kitchen?
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Seasonal
Rhythm strengthens wellness. In our kitchen, we prepare four different menus, which are enjoyed by the children in the kindergarten branches and visitors of the Children Academy. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter each have their own colors and flavors, and so does our seasonal menu. More warming food in winter, more vibrant colors in the summer. We have muffins every Wednesday, but we make several types, depending on the season. Every Tuesday, we have a green smoothie for breakfast, but its ingredients vary depending on the seasonal produce available.
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Local
The fascination with the possibility of eating exotic foods is fading, not only due to the global warming associated with it. Health enthusiasts are increasingly advising to strengthen health by choosing foods that are typical for your local area. Therefore, we invite you to enjoy the benefits of avocados at home, while in our kitchen, we focus primarily on what grows in Lithuanian fields. Let bananas wait in your parents' car, while at the kindergarten, we’ll enjoy healthy apples and carrot sticks.
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Eco-logical
The quality of meals is primarily defined by the quality of the ingredients. In our kitchen, we choose organic products whenever possible, with a preference for produce from Lithuanian organic farms and biodynamic solutions. We also seek eco-logical practices in our cooking processes – we use food preparation methods that conserve resources, strive to make as many products as possible in our kitchen, and bake our own bread, dry, freeze, and even lyophilize ingredients.
5 qualities
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Sustainable
Plant-based products, following the strictest recommendations, make up 80% of the meals we prepare. This allows us to use more resource-saving cooking methods, as vegetables, grains, and seeds require less processing. Nowadays, there is often intolerance or allergy to animal-based proteins, so we use them no more than the recommended norms. We also support other dietary traditions, offering a separately tailored menu for vegetarians, vegans, and those following a gluten-free diet.
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Flour twist
Instead of regular wheat flour, we use only whole grain spelt flour. We also widely use other types of flour – oats, corn, buckwheat, chickpea, and pea flour. This enriches the meals with additional micronutrients and helps reduce the stimulation of gluten sensitivity in children.
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Seed Feast
Have you heard? By adding seeds to your diet, you can avoid many diseases, as the seed is the very beginning of the entire food chain and contains the highest amount of vitamins and micronutrients. We aim to enrich our diet with as many seeds as possible. Every day, we eat our homemade rye bread with a seed mix, we dry seed crisps, sprinkle them on porridge, and enhance baked goods with them. A true seed feast!
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Play and Discovery
Children are very picky eaters. They don’t like “mash-ups,” but they love pasta, muffins, and, for example, bread with butter. Some children loudly demand something “not boiled or baked.” We know the kids well, so in our kitchen, we balance the responsibility of encouraging the exploration of different foods, encouraging tasting and trying, and helping them get used to new flavors, while also incorporating the necessary playfulness into their diet.
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Vitality
It is very important in all areas – and even more so when preparing meals for children – to do what is necessary and avoid doing what is not. It is important to properly process products such as meat or fish. Equally important is to maintain as many minimally processed fresh options in the menu as possible. Therefore, we widely use vegetables, seeds, fruits, and berries. We strive to buy products directly from the growers to shorten their journey to the children’s table.
