What is Taste lessons?
Taste Lessons (Smaaklessen in Dutch) is the Netherlands’ national food education programme for primary school children aged 4 to 12. Experiencing food is the central focus of this programme. By tasting, smelling, feeling looking and listening, children explore food using all their senses.
Through these hands-on experiences, children learn about food, nutrition and eating. They also develop the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy and sustainable food choices.
Content and focus
The programme consists of five lessons for each school year, with each lesson lasting approximately one hour. The lessons cover five main themes:
● Taste
● Healthy eating
● Food production
● Consumer skills
● Cooking and food preparation
Experiencing and enjoying food are just as important as acquiring knowledge. Children taste, investigate, discuss and prepare food themselves. This helps them connect what they learn to their everyday lives. In addition to Taste Lessons for primary schools, we offer food education programmes for other settings and target groups, including after-school care and special education. All teaching materials are available free of charge through the online educational platform Chef!.
Research-based approach
Taste Lessons is based on scientific knowledge about food education, taste development and experiential learning.
Research shows that children may need to taste a new food 10 to 15 times before becoming familiar with its flavour.
Children are also more willing to taste unfamiliar foods when they are involved in preparing them and have positive experiences with food.
Schools provide an ideal environment for food education. Teachers and classmates can act as positive role models and encourage children to explore and taste new foods. Activities such as tasting, cooking and gardening can help children develop a greater appreciation of food and support healthier choices.
Our scientific publications about food education
Impact
Research into the effectiveness of Taste Lessons has shown that the programme:
● increases children’s knowledge about food and nutrition;
● encourages children to taste unfamiliar foods;
● supports healthier and more varied eating habits;
● can further increase fruit and vegetable consumption when combined with the EU School Fruit programme.
Taste Lessons has been recognised by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) as a healthy lifestyle intervention with first indications of effectiveness.
The programme and its teaching materials are also evaluated regularly. Feedback from teachers is used to continuously improve the quality, usability and practical relevance of the materials.
Workshops on the Sapere method
The Sapere method uses sensory experiences, tasting, smelling, feeling, looking and listening, to help children explore food and develop their taste. Discover this approach in one of our interactive English-language workshops, which can be tailored to your organization
More on workshops
Organisation
Taste Lessons is developed by Wageningen University & Research in collaboration with government bodies, educational professionals, businesses and civil society organisations. We develop objective, evidence-based educational materials that help children learn about food, nutrition and eating.
Approximately 75% of primary schools in the Netherlands use our food education materials.
Contact
Taste Lessons & EU-Schoolfruit
Phone: +31 (0)317 – 48 59 66 (Mondays through Fridays 09:00 – 12.30)
E-mail: smaaklessen@wur.nl
Postal address: Postbus 9101, 6700 HB Wageningen
Visiting address: Droevendaalsesteeg 4, 6708 PB Wageningen