Healthy food and how to cook?

I just got back from helping out in Jesse's pre-primary class. It felt so good to finally have the time to be able to go and lend a hand as Jesse had been constantly asking me when it was my turn to come and help out at his school. I know I have made him happy by being there for him today and in turn that makes me very happy.

On a different note, it was shocking to see what was in some of these kids' lunchboxes!! Giant bags of Twisties, roll-ups, 2-3 muesli bars, chocolates and the list goes on. I even overheard one of the teacher assistant's saying to the other that one student in her class had a lunchbox that only contained chocolate and chocolate biscuits - no fruit and no sandwich. Ever!

I often felt guilty about what I put in Jesse's lunchbox because it didn't contain a lot of variety. Each day he gets a vegemite sandwich on wholemeal grain bread, a banana or an apple, a muesli bar and sometimes sultanas. After seeing what some other children are given for lunch I no longer feel so bad. I wish Jesse was interested in eating healthier foods (like carrot and celery sticks and different types of fruit) but at least he is eating quite healthy when compared to other children his age.

Another area where I cop a lot of criticism (mainly from my mum) is what I feed Jesse for dinner. We eat a lot of easy-to-throw-together meals such as scrambled eggs, porridge with banana, toasted sandwiches, spaghetti bolognaise and fish fingers with vegetables; however I never ever ever give Jesse any fast food - so no McDonald's, no KFC, no Hungry Jack's and so on. This is because I used to eat take-away quite often until I became very very ill with food poisoning after a meal from McDonald's and so I vowed never to feed it to myself or my son ever again. For moral support Dave no longer eats it either. Now I know I should be cooking more balanced meals (meat and veg) but due to so many bad experiences with food in the past I've become a little bit paranoid about what I cook for my family. I don't want to make any of us sick. Does anybody else ever have this concern? Can you trust what your local supermarket sells you?

On top of this I was never really taught how to cook. I mean I know how to boil an egg and do mashed potatoes and so on but most of what I know now I taught myself. When I helped mum in the kitchen it was usually just to chop vegetables, stir something or keep an eye on the stove so nothing burned. But I can not recall being taught how to cook a meal from start to finish. Having never learnt these skills I have also missed out on the sensory experiences that come with learning to cook, so I don't know what fresh produce is supposed to look like, smell like or even feel like. And this is where I become a little panicky because I don't want to accidentally cook a meal for my family only to have not realised that the meat was contaminated with salmonella. Maybe I'm overthinking things. Maybe I should just get over it and on with it. But all I want is the best for my family and that includes being considerate about what they put into their mouths. How did you all learn to cook? Did you grow up being taught or did you have to teach yourself when you moved out of home?

I am currently reading Life Skills for Kids by Christine M. Field and she mentions the following on page 85 in Chapter 3:

My mother wanted "something better" for me than she had experienced. In the climate of the late sixties and seventies, that translated into a liberation from the drudgery of domestic life; the young women of my generation were meant for greater things. So, while reveling in academia, I learned no domestic skills. At age nineteen in an early, ill-advised marriage, I barely handled laundry, opened a lot of cans for meals, and had a less-than-clean household.

Christine goes on to say that eventually she learned these skills after her marriage ended and she had the time and the freedom to work on these things at home alone. Unfortunately for me I have never really had that time. I first left home when I was 16 (although not for long) and then officially moved out at age 18 with a newborn baby. I was really thrown into domestic life but with no transferable skills that I could put into practice. And so now I sit here, aged 23 still without a clue on how to do things properly. I realise now that I have no choice but to teach myself the skills of domestic life - it's just a shame because I am a kinaesthetic learner so unless I can physically watch someone performing a task while I do it at the same time I am really going to struggle to learn anything. If you too have had to teach yourself, what helped you to learn? Does anybody have any advice they can share with me? Thank you in advance.