38 Fun Ideas to Play with Food and Decrease Picky Eating

child making smiley face mask with bread — Making a mask out of food is a great way for children to work on touching food to their face.

Playing with food and getting messy are important steps in learning to eat. Children often go through a period of food neophobia, or fear of new foods. Food neophobia often starts around 18 months to 2 years of age, and typically subsides by 6 years of age, and can contribute to picky eating. If left unchecked, however, it can snowball out of control. Allowing children to play with and get messy with new foods helps them to become more familiar and less afraid of the foods, and can help reduce picky eating.

Check out my post here to learn all the ways getting messy and playing with food can help reduce picky eating, and here for more mealtime strategies to help reduce picky eating.

I typically recommend incorporating play with food:

At the start of the meal if your child is not initiating eating, as play can help reduce stress and get them to start touching the food, which can lead to them eating their food;
Near the end of the meal if your child starts off eating their preferred foods well at the start of the meal in order to get some interaction with the non-preferred foods at the end of the meal;
Throughout the meal if your child does not get overly distracted;
Or by starting off with play during snack times when you may be less stressed about the quantity of food your child consumes (although reduced stress created with play, and interacting with the non-preferred foods through play, will most likely lead to increased eating in the long run).

baby playing with food — Touching the food with their hands is an important step to feel comfortable bringing the food to their mouth.

The closer your child is willing to get the food to their face and mouth, the closer they are to trying it.

I’ve listed the strategies below in order, in general, from the least comfortable with the food, to the most comfortable with the food. Your child may start with different foods at different comfort levels, that’s okay!

Children may start with tolerating the food on the table or on their plate, and work their way up to interacting with it (i.e. not directly touching it yet, but using something else to touch it), to touching it with their fingers and hands, and then closer to their face and mouth, to placing it in their mouth and tasting it, to eventually chewing and swallowing it. These steps take a lot of time and patience.

*Important note: For these tips to work, they must include willing participation from the child.

Touching the food to your child’s body/face will likely not result in the same positive effects as your child touching the food to their own body/face (have you ever been encouraged by someone to eat something you don’t like by them shoving it in your face? Probably not). Unless your child asks you to do something with the food to their body, rely on modeling and suggestions (e.g. “You can put it on your head too!”), instead of touching the food to them, making them touch it, or asking/telling them to do something with the food (e.g. “Touch the peas,” “Can you put it on your head?”).

Try making glasses out of bell peppers while cooking with your child.

Here are some fun ideas on how to model playing with food to encourage interacting with, touching, tasting, and eventually eating new foods:

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Play “I spy” and find a food on the table that is a certain color.
Place food inside a clear zip lock bag and squish it in the bag.
Put the food to bed. Cover the food with a napkin and say, “Goodnight ___.”
Help mom or dad by scooping the food and placing it on their plate.
Poke the food with a fork and feeling if it’s soft, hard, or crumbly.
Use a child-safe knife to cut food.
Use cookie cutters to make shapes with the food.
Take a food they're comfortable with (e.g. pretzels), and poke it into a new food.
Use one food to “paint” with a liquid/puree type food (e.g. dip, sauce, yogurt)
Play hide-and-seek with the food, and place it under their napkin, under another food, under their placemat, etc.
Cook with mom or dad. Use a step stool like this, and child-safe cutting utensils, with adult supervision.
Stack the food into a tower, don’t let it fall! Just kidding, you can knock it over then build it again!
Make letters out of the food.
Make a picture with the food.
Pretend the food is a car and drive it around your plate.
Pretend your foods are people or characters and act out pretend play with the food.
Smash the food with fingertips or hands.
Roll the food between hands or against the table.
Have the food climb up your arm like a mountain up to your shoulder, then slide down your arm.
Balance the food on your head, who can balance it the longest?
Use the food as pretend earrings.
Use the food to put on “make-up.”
Make a clown nose.
Use the food as a telescope and pretend to be a pirate (e.g. penne pasta).
Make silly eyebrows or glasses with the food.
Make a mustache with the food, try to hold it with your upper lip and nose!
Pretend to put on lipstick or chapstick with the food.
Pretend to use the food as a toothbrush (bonus if you use a dip/sauce/puree for “toothpaste”).
Pretend to be a dog and hold the food between your teeth like a dog bone.
Choose a favorite animal and make bite marks in the food (e.g. dinosaur bites, kitty bites).
Make shapes using your teeth (e.g. cut out a moon) - it’s okay to spit out the pieces.
Hold the food on a fork and lick it like a lollipop.
Pretend to be a lizard and lick the food like a lizard. Lizard licks!
Balance the food on your tongue - can they beat their record?
Blow the food from your mouth like a rocket into a bowl or the trash can.
Count the number of chews, how many times can you chew it? It’s okay to have a designated bowl/cup to spit into.
Do an experiment to see what the food looks like a little chewed up, and very chewed up.
Pretend to eat like a tiny animal (e.g. mouse, squirrel) and take teeny tiny bites.

Worried about the mess? Try placing a washable mat or disposable/biodegradable mat under their seat!

Remember, kids usually have the most success when mealtimes are fun and relaxed, play can help you get there. These steps take a lot of time and patience, but it will be worth the effort!

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This website and information on this blog post is provided for educational purposes only. It is not meant as medical advice, intended to replace a speech-language or feeding assessment, therapy from a speech-language pathologist, or serve as medical or nutritional care for a child. It is recommended that you discuss any concerns or questions you might have with your Speech-Language Pathologist, pediatrician, and medical team, and develop an individualized team plan specifically for your child.

38 Fun Ideas to Play with Food and Decrease Picky Eating

The closer your child is willing to get the food to their face and mouth, the closer they are to trying it.

*Important note: For these tips to work, they must include willing participation from the child.

Here are some fun ideas on how to model playing with food to encourage interacting with, touching, tasting, and eventually eating new foods:

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