Book Recommendation | STEAM-powered Food Adventures

I was excited to get my hands on STEAM-powered Food Adventures: 101+ Child-Led Explorations for Curious Kids, written by Dani Lebovitz, a fellow pediatric dietitian, and beautifully illustrated by Mary Navarro. I pre-ordered it at the end of 2023, and it arrived a couple of weeks ago.

Overview

The book is aimed at families with children aged four years and above. It includes open-ended food-related activities that can be done together as a family or more self-led (depending on their age). Unlike typical kids' cookbooks, this book delves into cool things like kitchen experiments, maths with food, foods from around the world, and edible art, fostering critical thinking, imaginative exploration, and problem-solving skills through the medium of food.

What sets this book apart is its evidence-based approach, providing an engaging avenue for teaching children about food while avoiding potentially harmful terminology such as "good" and "bad" or "healthy" and "unhealthy". This resonates with me because food science sparked my interest in food at age 14, which later led me to study dietetics. So far, my kids have loved recording a "How to" video on making their lunch, weighing our vegetables and arranging them from heaviest to lightest (with some help).

Another great plus is that it encourages interaction with food outside of the pressure of mealtimes, making it ideal for kids who experience anxiety around eating certain types of food. It also doesn't just provide activities that make food inedible (like painting pasta shells), which I have always found a little problematic. It offers many great alternatives, like using a magnet to find iron in cereal, and contains additional free downloads on the website if you are looking for more. {unfortunately, the Kid Food Explorer website is down when posting this, but please email hello@kidfoodexplorers.com if you want any of her resources}.

The book would also be valuable for teachers looking for innovative teaching tools. These science experiments serve as evidence-based alternatives to the problematic and potentially harmful tasks prevalent in many schools (and drenched in diet culture), such as making kids keep food logs and count calories.

Recommendation

This book is an excellent resource for parents and educators who want to encourage children's interest and curiosity around food or want to incorporate easy and practical STEAM activities in the home or class setting without needing fancy ingredients or technology.

A personal note on "mom guilt."

I have to share with you that after reading the book for the first time, I felt that familiar twang of guilt, like "you aren't doing enough"; it was another item on my list of "things I should be doing, but am not". I don't think this is a flaw in the author's approach. Dani clearly suggests starting small and customizing activities based on individual comfort levels. I even had a private chat with her on social media about it. Chances are, people probably feel the same when reading my posts, especially when you are short on resources like free time and disposable income.

Look, I'm not a great "activity" mom (if you are, that is awesome, and please do you). I do better when the activity has a purpose, like helping me make dinner or creating a birthday card for a friend's party. My personal struggles and feelings are not a critique of the book itself but a reflection of my insecurities as a parent and perhaps my resistance against the invisible load of motherhood. In addition, I was probably having a bad day (like we all do).

I decided to share my experience and call out this "mom guilt" in the hope that it might benefit others. We're all doing our best with what we have. If you enjoy these types of activities, that's great. If you only want to use the book's STEAM-based principles to talk about food instead of using diet culture language, that's fantastic, too. And if you're reading this and don't feel ready for either, that's also perfectly okay. You are a good parent. Don't get stuck on comparison. And use resources that work for you without a side order of guilt.

Summary

The reality is my children are becoming more curious about food-related topics, and they love to ask questions. And so, in these situations, I can refer them to a beautiful and interesting book and incorporate some of the activities on my more productive days. Dani's approach provides a language and outlook that are great alternatives to the limiting "healthy" vs "unhealthy" or "good" vs "bad" outlook dominating the current narrative. As my children grow and become more curious, this book will become a valuable resource in my parenting toolkit.

See what Dani is up to on her social media account, Kid Food Explorers. If you like what you see, getting her books would be a good option. In addition, I hope that the STEAM-powered Food Adventurers message motivates you to talk to your kids about how cool and fascinating food and nutrition are while shedding the harmful vocabulary of diet culture.

NOTE: This review is not sponsored in any way. I purchased my copy.