Looking for supporters to help TastEd in our next five years.

As we’re celebrating 5 years of TastEd, we’re looking forward and thinking about our future as a charity. We’re so proud to have 1,250 primary schools and nurseries signed up to access our free sensory food education resources. But with 20,000 primary schools in the UK we plan to do more. We know we’ve got work to do to reach more children than ever before, and to do so we’re going to need your help…

For us, there’s nothing more gratifying than witnessing or hearing about a child trying a veg or fruit for the first time. With your support, we can help even more children build lifelong healthy eating habits and joyous relationships with fresh vegetables and fruits.

To support our cause across our fifth year we’re looking for 50 people generous enough to donate to TastEd on a monthly basis. These regular donations will give us a knowable, steady income, helping us plan for the future and continue our mission to get sensory food education into primary schools and nurseries in the UK. However small the donation, everything helps us to change things.

Why TastEd matters:

“I work with extremely vulnerable children and seeing the spark in their eyes as they use their different senses is wonderful. The lesson plans are great and offer so many options. TastEd is truly wonderful and I am glad it is part of my professional life.”

While we speak only to the joy of vegetables and fruits there are other, very important reasons to ensure every child experiences this joy. Many of this countries children’s diets are not meeting their needs – with the average height of five year olds falling since 2013. Of course, our food environment and levels of deprivation are certainly causes, but having a child come home and say they know they want to eat broccoli/cabbage empowers parents to make those purchases without fearing food waste. It also can change a child’s relationship with food as they mature. They’ll have developed tastes for a wide range of vegetables and fruits and will know just how easy (and fun!) it is to throw together a nourishing and delicious salad.

Schools and nurseries are the best place to introduce children to these foods. With our golden rules of ‘no one has to like’ and ‘no one has to try’, children explore veg without necessarily putting food in their mouths. In a lesson, their curiosity grows and the positive peer pressure of friends and trusted adults to help them make that final step.

Exploring foods in a sensory way is so different to the rest of school life – and far more successful than learning about healthy diets from a chart or diagram. Play, joy and sensory exploration allow children who learn differently an opportunity to thrive and we’re so pleased to provide free resources that are inclusive and fun.

We greatly appreciate your support.