Sapere Play

Would you like to open up a new world of sensory food experiences to young children? Then Sapere is the ”go-to” method! This hands-on approach teaches children how to use all their 5 senses to explore food and their own food preferences – using their sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste. Sapere is a joyful, effective and simple way, to build knowledge about our five senses and put the experience into words. The Sapere method is tried out and used in many countries. It’s a new and fun way to better health. Sensory food education can increase children’s willingness to try new food and eat with a larger variety. Learning through play helps build familiarity and can lead to an increased acceptance of new foods. This episode guides you into the aims and possibilities of the Sapere method.

Our five senses, sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing, help us to explore our surroundings and protect us from danger. We survive, perceive, learn and enjoy with our senses, often without even realising it.  The aim of the Sapere method is for children to become familiar with their senses and develop the courage and ability to use them. Children are also given the opportunity to practise their ability to describe sensory experiences and realise that food doesn’t just taste nice or horrible – it can also be colourful, sharp, fiery, airy or crisp. The Sapere method is tried out and used in many countries. It’s a new and fun way to better health. This episode is a guide to encouraging children to use all their senses, not just one at a time. To discover that our senses interact with one another, and sometimes even overlap, or overpower each other.

The Sapere method is tried out and used in many countries. It’s a new and fun way to better health. Normally, when we talk about taste, saying that something tastes good, is actually a combination of the senses; taste, smell and touch. The sense of taste is in our mouth, mainly on our tongue, but also in our gums and throat. Our five basic tastes are: Sweet, Salt, Sour, Bitter and Umami. Smell is, like sight, a remote sense. We can take in and interpret the information from a distance. Humans can distinguish thousands of different smells, but sometimes we struggle to describe them in words. Developing a well needed language for sensory experiences is one of the core reasons behind the Sapere method. In this episode you are guided through the difference between taste, smell and aroma.

We eat with our eyes, using our sense of sight more than any other sense. Sight is a kind of sorting mechanism, a first “sensory barrier”. The eyes don’t like to be disappointed. The more impressed we are by how something looks, the more we expect from it, in terms of taste. Touch is essential to how we experience food. Texture, for example, is very important to our taste experience. To analyse, remember and share a sensory experience, words are important. Developing a language for sensory experiences is one of the core reasons behind the Sapere method.  The Sapere method is a joyful, effective and simple way, to build knowledge about our five senses and put the experience into words. This episode shows how the senses sight and touch affects the food experience.

Hearing impacts our food experience. Consider the clattering of pots from the kitchen, crunching of biscuits, butter sizzling in the frying pan, popcorn popping, water running from the tap, soup bubbling and the sound of a knife against the cutting board. The sounds from the kitchen prepare us for the food that we’re going to eat. Some taste experiences can be difficult and needs time to learn to appreciate like bitter and strong spices. Fighting at the dinner table is one way of disturbing or ruining the meal experience. The Sapere method is a hands-on approach to teach children how to use all their five senses to explore food and their own food preferences. This episode shows what happens when you remove the food’s sound. It also deals with difficult and disturbing food experiences.

The Sapere method is a hands-on approach to teach children how to use all their five senses to explore food and their own food preferences.  This episode shows that sensory food education, like the Sapere method, can be key to build a new generation’s interest in and understanding of food which can be a pathway to a more sustainable food system. It’s a joyful method for children and teachers alike, exploring the senses, while discussing the role of food in our bodies, lives and on earth.