This Food Explorer Kit Is Your Game Plan for Dinner Battles

by Gabby Cullen

6 years ago

Imagine this familiar scene: It’s dinner time and one (if not all) of your kids are refusing to eat the meal you’ve prepared—and refusing it loudly. Instead of throwing in the towel and dishing out “kid-friendly” foods (aka frozen, starchy, sugary stuff), consider a new angle. Dr. Dina Rose Ph.D., the author of It’s Not About the Broccoli, has created the Food Explorer Kit—a unique way to deal with picky eaters. From over 60 discovery activities to tasting spoons and a progress chart, there’s a ton of fun with food to be had! Keep reading to learn more.

What It Is

The Food Explorer Kit is a fun addition to Dr. Rose’s book, It’s Not About the Broccoli. As a sociologist, Dr. Rose digs deep into why kids develop particular food habits, and what parents are doing that might be counterintuitive. It’s about fixing habits, how to engage in open talk about food, and teaching moderation, among other subjects, with the end goal of helping kids develop a healthy relationship with food. “We keep talking about nutrition and tricking kids into eating when what we should be talking about is habits,” says Rose. And the Food Explorer Kit is the perfect tool to help make that happen.

How It Works

You’ll receive your Food Explorer Kit in a fun red lunch bag, with a discovery notebook for recording texture, taste, smell, sound, appearance and temperature. There’s also a lab tray, magnifying glass, descriptive word list, spoons and medicine dropper. Your exploring eaters can nibble, crumble, sniff, move, and chew on any food that might seem scary or too new, instead of being confronted with it at the dinner table. Then, after they record their findings in their discovery notebooks, they’ll be armed with what Rose calls “a database” of food information they can use to figure out what a food will be like before they taste it. Talk about a creative way to get kids to eat their greens (and reds, purples and yellows!).