Adventurous Eating Expert
Meet Dr. Lucy Cooke – Educational Consultant for Adventurous Eating
Lucy is a chartered Research Psychologist with a PHD in children’s eating-behaviour. For over 15 years, she has been designing and testing strategies to improve children’s eating habits.
Lucy is the pioneer behind the innovative Tiny Tastes method, which helps children develop a love for a wider variety of fruits and vegetables. Her expertise has been instrumental in shaping numerous interventions to foster healthier relationships with food and encourage kids to explore a broader range of vegetables.
From the beginning, Lucy played a pivotal role in our game’s development, collaborating closely with the design team to ensure it combines science-backed research with engaging, kid-friendly fun. Her focus included studying how behaviour change techniques can effectively tackle picky eating:
“Tasting alone is not the full story when it comes to learning to like and be interested in food”.
Watch Dr. Cooke share insights and tell us about her role in Adventurous Eating
What are the benefits of Adventurous Eating?
In our discussions with Dr. Lucy Cooke, she highlighted several key benefits of Adventurous Eating for children’s development:
Enhancing language skills
“In TastEd lessons at school, teachers have observed children using surprisingly creative vocabulary to describe the food they explore. We’ve built this into Adventurous Eating, encouraging kids to describe the feel, taste, smell, and appearance of food in wide-ranging and interesting ways.
That’s another great benefit of the game — it helps kids expand their descriptive language about food.”
Trying low-risk food
Many parents of children with food aversions have reported positive changes thanks to the game. This success is tied to the game’s approach of low-pressure, “virtual” food trials.
“Food in real life can feel quite stressful for children. Exploring food in an app, at one remove, can help reduce anxiety in some kids. It’s a great way to educate children about foods without the pressure of having the actual food in front of them,” Dr. Cooke explains.
A unique, science-driven approach using all five senses
“There are other games and apps around children’s eating, but Adventurous Eating stands out because it’s driven by science. It uniquely integrates the exploration of food through all five senses, which most games don’t do.”
Helping families with picky eaters
The methods in Adventurous Eating can be applied at home, offering parents practical strategies to improve mealtime dynamics.
“Mealtimes can be incredibly stressful for families with picky eaters who refuse fruits and vegetables. Anything that helps parents reduce stress and make eating exciting is going to be hugely beneficial.”
Discover how Adventurous Eating can transform your family’s relationship with food!
What are the long-term benefits of good eating behaviour in childhood?
What research or evidence has informed the Adventurous Eating game?
Adventurous Eating is a game created in collaboration with child-feeding specialist Dr. Lucy Cooke. It draws significant inspiration from the SAPERE Method—a scientific learning approach that encourages children to explore and discover food using all five senses.
A multisensory food adventure
Through smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch, the game is designed to help children engage with food by experimenting and experiencing it fully. As they interact with food and watch their monster do the same, children slowly begin a brave sensory adventure.
Through this method, children are also encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings about food. Importantly, there’s no right or wrong preference —every opinion is valid, whether they like the new food or not… We like to think we’ve created a perfect blend of a positive and pressure-free approach to trying new fruits and vegetables.
Children are never forced to taste food – and interestingly, during research, we observed that children’s courage to try foods often became contagious, as they inspired others to take a taste too. Role-modelling in the game (via the monster), in class, and most importantly at home, can be key to unlocking that positive mindset to exploring new foods.
Translating the Sapere Method into Adventurous Eating
These principles shaped some of the activities in Adventurous Eating:
5-Sense Mini Games: Players guide their monster through sensory games involving smelling, touching, looking, listening, and tasting food.
Gentle Encouragement: If a monster first resists trying a food, they’re asked if they’d like to take a tiny lick. They might give it a try. Over time, they might decide to take a bite!
All Reactions Are Valid: Each monster and their friends respond differently to foods, reinforcing the idea that every reaction is okay.
Read more about the Sapere method in our article ‘The Sapere Method and Adventurous Eating’.
Dr. Cooke’s Tiny Tastes approach
Dr. Cooke’s Tiny Tastes program also played a role in shaping Adventurous Eating. This science-based method showed that repeated exposure to a disliked food—paired with small rewards like stickers—can increase a child’s willingness to try and enjoy it.
In Adventurous Eating, these insights come to life:
Repeated exposure: The same foods appear throughout the game, helping the monster (and the child!) develop a liking for them over time.
Stickers for progress: Kids earn fruit and vegetable stickers for their monster’s food journal, creating a fun, rewarding record of their progress.
Watch Dr. Cooke talking about how Adventurous Eating helps reduce food waste
Helping parents at home
Parents can use the game’s Practice Mode to select specific “disliked” fruits and vegetables, allowing their child to explore these foods in a low-pressure, playful environment. Over time, this increased exposure to the more challenging foods can help shift attitudes and improve the chances of children accepting those foods.
Discover how Adventurous Eating turns science into fun and transforms picky eaters into curious food adventurers!