A third of children can't identify a raw potato - do them a favour and pass the peeler

The age they should be walking, the age they should be reading, the age they should know their times tables. Parenting apps buzz with reminders and milestones for years. But ask parents the age a child should have cooking responsibilities and food knowledge, and many won’t agree.

New research I carried out with AlbertBartlett.co.uk gave me an uncomfortable answer. A third of primary school-aged children could not identify a raw potato. Most parents still do not trust their child with a peeler by the age of ten, even though children could be doing it safely two years earlier. At the same time, Uber Eats has launched Eats for Teens, a service that lets under-16s order dinner to the door on their own account. So while a growing number of children can order food with a few taps, plenty cannot make it themselves.

I don’t think this is really about laziness, on either side. Parents are juggling cost, time, and the constant question of what everyone is going to eat next, and reaching for convenience is understandable, especially now. But I think the gap has widened into something that costs families more than it should, at exactly the moment household budgets are under the most pressure.

Take the humble potato. Our research found that most children think a 2.5kg bag, one of the cheapest staple foods in the supermarket, costs more than £10, when it actually costs around £2. Eight out of ten pre-teens told us they could feed themselves alone if they had to, yet three quarters of those meals turn out to be a reheated ready meal rather than anything cooked from scratch. That is not true independence, it is just convenience and is usually the more expensive option.

Working with Albert Bartlett, I put together a Cooking Milestone list. It's an age-by-age guide to what children can realistically be doing in the kitchen, with support from an adult alongside them. At eighteen months, a toddler can tear lettuce and scrub potatoes in the sink. At five, they can mash with a fork. At eight, most children can safely peel their own potatoes and carrots. By eleven, they can start helping plan a meal and thinking about value in the weekly shop. By thirteen, many can confidently use the stove, the oven and a blender, and follow a recipe from start to finish.

None of this is about banning takeaways or turning family life into a cookery school. There will still be nights when convenience wins, and that is fine. This is about adding another option for children, not taking one away. If a child grows up knowing what an ingredient actually is, what they can do with it, and how much it costs, that is not just a kitchen skill. It is confidence, and it is a life skill they carry with them long after they leave home.

September is a good moment to start (there is still time left!), as routines reset, lunchboxes come back, and food budgets get renegotiated for a lot of households all at once. It is also, frankly, one of the few weeks a year most parents are already thinking hard about what their children can and cannot yet do.

Handing over the peeler will not fix the cost-of-living squeeze on its own. But teaching a child to turn a handful of cheap, ordinary ingredients into something they made themselves is not just about saving money this week. It’s a skill for life, one they will use long after they have left home.

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Kate Hardcastle MBE is a consumer behaviour expert known as The Customer Whisperer, and a regular contributor on ITV1's Eat Shop Save, Rip Off Britain and Watchdog.

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