How often are young children told not to play with their food? With sensory food education – a hands-on approach to exploring food – they are actively encouraged to, with the aim of enabling children to enjoy healthier diets containing a wider variety of fruit and vegetables.
According to research by the Food Foundation (see Further information), nearly a third of primary-aged children eat less than one portion of vegetables each day, and the number of children eating little or no vegetables has increased in the past decade. In response to this, food education charity TastEd is working with nurseries and schools to help children to become more confident, adventurous and healthy eaters who enjoy new foods.
‘The first 1,000 days of life are really important because children are developing preferences that they’re going to have for the rest of their lives,’ says TastEd director Fran Box. ‘So if we can work with younger children, the more likely we are to be able to support them to have healthy lifestyles into adulthood. Sensory food education is about giving children the opportunity to experience a wide range of fruit and vegetables with the idea of increasing their willingness to eat them. It gives children hands-on experiences with real fruit and vegetables using all their senses.’
SAPERE METHOD
The charity is currently supporting nursery practitioners in more than 500 settings to deliver inexpensive food education activities based on the Sapere method, which is successfully used in Finland and Sweden. The method focuses on exploring small amounts of fruit and vegetables outside of mealtimes using all five senses – sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste. Two rules are to make sessions relaxed and remove pressure and expectations around eating new foods:
- No-one is forced to taste the food.
- No-one has to pretend to like it.
During sessions, children explore whole pieces of fruit and vegetables alongside their peers and are asked open-ended questions such as, ‘What does the pea pod sound like when we break it?’ or ‘How does the carrot feel?’. They are encouraged to smell, touch and pull the fruit and vegetables apart and, if they want to, to lick or taste them, but there is no coercion.
‘No person likes every single food, so this is giving them the opportunity to explore and develop their preferences,’ explains Box. ‘Most children don’t like things the first time they try them, but they can learn to like food over time – there’s a lot of evidence around the fact that children need to try foods ten-plus times before they like them.
‘I heard a phrase – “Children eat what they like and they like what they know”. But if they are not getting to know different foods then they are never going to have the opportunity to like them.’
She adds that the cost-of-living crisis has resulted in increased numbers of families unable to afford fresh fruit and vegetables. It has also led to parents being reluctant to cook meals they do not think their child will eat because they can’t afford the food waste. Both result in fewer children being exposed to fruit and vegetables. ‘We’re in danger of ending up with an increased divide between people that have access to fresh fruit and veg and people that don’t,’ Box warns.
While she says hiding vegetables in meals has the positive outcome that children are consuming them, it reduces the opportunity for children to get to become familiar with the items and can result in children thinking they have never tried or don’t like them. ‘If they have never seen a whole onion, never felt a carrot or never had a bite of a pepper, they are not going to feel confident to incorporate those foods into their diet,’ Box adds.
‘A lot of the way we’ve promoted food historically has been focused on saying what you should eat and how much you should have in your diet, or eat the vegetables and then you can have your treat. What we’re trying to do is turn this on its head and have fun – look at the colours, feel how bumpy it is, listen to the snapping sound it makes – rather than making children feel pressure to eat it. It’s about getting children to have little tastes when they are ready.’
Many early years settings are turning away from using food items for play, but Box emphasises that there is a big difference between using a potato for printing – when a child gets to experience what it looks like but does not necessarily understand that it is a piece of food – and exploring a vegetable with the purpose of engaging with something they may eat. ‘Even if the children aren’t ready to eat a carrot, they may lick it, and next time have a nibble and spit it out. The next time, they may eat it, and then eat it off their plate at lunchtime,’ she explains. ‘It’s that long look at food waste, because when we speak to schools, it’s the fruit and veg that are going in the bin at the end of mealtimes.’
She adds that only a small amount of fruit and vegetables – which sometimes come from redistributed surplus food, such as FareShare – are used for the activities and the rest are then used in mealtimes and snacks.
COMMUNICATING PREFERENCES
Through the sensory food sessions, children also learn to communicate their preferences, for example, that they like crunchy carrots but don’t like cooked, soft ones. ‘Lots of children don’t like the texture of certain foods,’ says Box. ‘But you can prepare things in different ways to support that preference. Children can learn to talk about how they might like mushroom soup because they enjoy the taste but don’t like the texture of chopped mushrooms.’
Settings that have run sensory food sessions report that children are more confident to try new foods, that parents have noticed a difference at home and that they are now offering a wider variety of fruit and vegetables as a result.
CASE STUDY: Portland Kindergarten, Lincoln
‘A few years ago, a staff member brought in a local newspaper article that hit us really hard. It said that a girl born in our area of Sincil Bank is expected to die 18 years sooner than one born just four miles away in a more affluent area of Lincoln,’ says owner Melanie Smith.
‘It made us question what we are doing to support children’s life expectancy. We knew we were giving them a positive start to life, but felt we could be doing more to educate them on healthy food choices and give them access to healthy foods.
‘We considered what was stopping our children from eating more fruits and vegetables. Access was an issue because it’s an area of deprivation. There are many corner shops, but they don’t necessarily stock fresh produce, and there are a lot of takeaways. Parents preferred to buy food that was longer life and that the children were not going to reject. We decided that, if it takes up to 15 tries for a child to like a certain food, then we were happy to take on the responsibility and give them experiences with foods they may not eat at home, which led us to TasteEd.
‘The sessions are all about giving children exposure to new foods and creating familiarity without pressure. In fact, a lot of children can’t resist trying the fruit and vegetables. We started by following the TasteEd lesson plans. Once staff got the hang of it, they began to run their own sessions. They take children to the market and ask them what to explore, they discuss whether fruit and vegetables are smooth or spiky, what they think they’ll look like inside and their comparative weight. Now children sometimes bring things in that they saw in the supermarket and want to share with their friends.
‘It’s such a lovely, positive experience, which is why we’re still holding the sessions after three years.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
- www.tasteeducation.com
- Food Foundation Veg Facts 2021: https://bit.ly/46tHqag
