TORY MP Nigel Evans is cooking up a new subject for schoolchildren - learning to make the most of the kitchen.

He has urged education secretary David Blunkett to put food technology in the National Curriculum.

Now too few children learn how to cook at home and he wants them to be taught everything from basic food safety and hygiene through to the nutrition and haute cuisine.

He says food scares are now too common and that if youngsters learned more about cooking and preparing food they would have safer adult lives.

The Tory front-bencher for Ribble Valley said: "I have made a submission to Mr Blunkett stating that parents have less and less time to teach their children about cooking and hygiene, which was not the case when they were young.

"In those days parents - particularly mothers - would spend considerably more time in the kitchen than is currently the case and it was here that youngsters were educated into home skills, invariably at their mother's knee.

"Frozen, ready-made meals and the microwave should not chain our youngsters into an independency culture which robs them of simple cooking skills.

"In many cases, this skill could save the money as well as furnish them with the knowledge of hygienic ways to treat food.

"I have already met with the Meat and Livestock Commission and they agree."

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