Star of big and small screen Sarah Michelle Gellar is well known for her roles from the heroic Buffy the Vampire Slayer and sweet Daphne in Scooby-Doo  (co-starring Freddie Prinze Jr. who she would eventually marry) to the conniving Kathryn in Cruel Intentions. More recently she starred in the critically acclaimed sitcom The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams. But she is less known for her business venture, Foodstirs, a line of scratch-made, pre-measured baking mixes for families wanting to get into the kitchen with their kids. She recently joined Swiffer’s #SayYesToTheMess campaign to encourage parents to clean less and play more.

“My children were initially the inspiration for Foodstirs. I’m not a chef by any stretch of the imagination but my kids showed a real interest in baking. I learned with them and found it to be a really great experience. We were really connecting on a different level when working together in the kitchen.

I noticed that scratch mixes at the store still had lots of artificial ingredients, and I didn’t want to eat that, but on the other end of the spectrum the super healthy stuff didn’t taste good. It’s food; it’s supposed to taste good. I think with the rise of Pinterest there’s this pressure to make everything look really beautiful, and I like to say there’s a gap between inspiration and execution. You go to the store and get all these special tools and ingredients and what are the odds you’re going to do it, and if you do it, what are the odds that it’s going to look good? And by the time I get all that stuff, I’m too tired to be in the kitchen!

I wanted to make it easier and more convenient for families to create memories in the kitchen so Foodstirs was born.

Life is messy, those are the most important moments. I’ve always embraced the mess. It’s part of my creativity. If 95 percent of parents believe that creating messes are important to their development, but 75 percent of parents are saying, “But I don’t want to do it”. I think it shows that you can be in the moment and you can have those great experiences, and messes will get cleaned up at the end. We’re busy and it’s hard, but if you’re too busy cleaning up while your kids are having a moment, then you’re not experiencing it with them.”

Photo by Diane Bondareff/Invision for Swiffer/AP Images

Originally published in ParentsCanada magazine, August/September 2016.