The Food Chain

Are processed foods and urbanisation numbing children’s sensory abilities, and should we teach them to smell, touch, taste and even listen to their food to improve their diets and self-awareness? Emily Thomas meets three people from different parts of the world who work in ‘sensory food education’, which encourages children to explore all aspects of a food. They want young people to be taught these skills in schools, but is this really a job for teachers rather than parents? And could sensory food education really be as important as numeracy and literacy? Our guests this week are Stina Algotson, president of Sapere International in Sweden; Dr Nicholas Wilkinson, co-founder of Flavour School in the UK; and Srimathi Kannan, a sensory food educator at the University of Michigan in the US. (Photo: Infant smelling banana. Credit: Getty Images/ BBC)