In this article, the author reports on a project which is teaching young parents, most of them from disadvantaged backgrounds, the skills they need to shop and cook healthily on a tight budget. In 2006, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned the National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) to run "Let's Cook!", a three-year project to teach young parents basic cookery and housekeeping. It built on the success of the "Get Cooking" project, which had run in Wales for many years. The NFWI's long commitment to improving the nation's diet and health through the provision of high-quality food made it a natural partner to the FSA, which was set up in 2000 to protect people's health and the interests of consumers in relation to food.