Incorporating sensory-based food exploration into early years education

Familiarity is a key driver of children’s food preferences. In other words, children prefer foods that they have had before and tend to reject anything unfamiliar. This is particularly true with fruit and vegetables which are the foods that are most often rejected by young children. A growing body of research suggests that helping children to explore foods using all five senses, rather than focusing on taste alone increases familiarity and can have a positive effect on their willingness to try new foods.

Multi-sensory interaction with fruit and vegetables outside of mealtimes is an enjoyable way of encouraging children to engage with these foods without any pressure to actually eat them. This is especially important for picky or fussy eaters who will accept only a narrow range of ‘safe’ foods and may become extremely anxious if offered anything else. Those safe foods are generally bland, ‘beige’ carbohydrates together with highly processed meat products and very few fruits and vegetables. By using sensory techniques to introduce children to the sight, smell, sound and feel of food as well as the taste, childcare professionals can help lay the foundations for more adventurous (and healthy) eating.

The background to sensory approaches to food education
In the 1970s, French wine expert and chemist, Jacques Puisais, observed that French children were growing up with increasingly limited diets and narrow food preferences. He developed SAPARE, a system of taste education designed to broaden children’s dietary repertoire and to help them rediscover the joy of food. Research from Europe, where the method is used widely, shows increased eating and enjoyment of fruits and vegetables in children who have experienced this type of ‘taste education’.

Implementing sensory education in childcare settings
Exploration of food using all five senses can be undertaken in small groups or on an individual basis. This is best attempted outside of mealtimes in order to give the more anxious children the opportunity to experience a wide range of different foods without the express requirement to eat. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Sight
Put a selection of fruit and or vegetables on a plate. Cut them in half and get the children to talk about how different the inside looks.
Ideally children will be presented with real fruit and vegetables but if there are none available, you could print out pictures of a range of fruit and vegetables and encourage discussion about the different shapes, colours, and sizes.

Smell
Select fruits and vegetables with contrasting aromas such as sweetcorn, cucumber, a satsuma or an onion. Chop them up and challenge the children to identify the smell with their eyes closed.

Hearing
Listen to the different sounds that soft foods (bananas) and hard foods (carrots) make when cut up or broken. Ask the children to describe the sound and say which is the loudest.

Touch
Choose fruits or vegetables with contrasting textures – bumpy broccoli, smooth grapes, a fuzzy kiwi. Let children feel the outside textures and describe how it feels. Then cut the fruit and vegetables open and ask them to feel them again and say how they feel different.

Taste
Bring some variety in here with one fruit or vegetable prepared in different ways – cooked, raw, mashed or whole. Ask the children to taste them and talk about the difference in taste and texture, and which they like best. Remember not to pressure children who don’t want to taste.

Online resources
Reinforce the learning delivered in practical sessions by tapping into these free online resources. In the UK, the charity TastEd offers support, training and resources based on the SAPARE method to teachers and parents
(www.tasteeducation.com).

Also inspired by the SAPARE method, Teach Your Monster: Adventurous Eating (www.teachyourmonster.org/adventurous-eating) is a free online game for 3-6 year-olds in which children help their own customised monster to try their choice of over 40 fruits and vegetables using their five senses. Children enjoy feeding or caring for a character, and the game allows children to engage with foods at one remove – through their monster – making new food less intimidating. It can be played without supervision in a childcare setting or at home and the results of early trials suggest that children may be more willing to try foods if their monster has tried them first.

A multi-sensory approach to food education gives children the chance to experience new fruits and vegetables in a positive and exciting way, paving the way for a better relationship with food in the longer term.