How do you talk about food nutrition and healthy food with your child? How easy is it to take the tasty fries or the sweet donuts away from their plates? Do you know how much sugar in the donuts? You can get help on all these questions from a fun app Smash Your Food.
Smash Your Food lets the kids pick the food, and watch the food be smashed between two metal plates, and sugar, salt and oil be filtered into glasses and be measured. There is no better way to break down the food that kids love into the nutrient level and show them how much is too much.
Before the kids start the game, they are asked to put in their age, gender and active level. They will then get the recommended amount of sugar, salt and oil they can take from each meal. Next, kids are asked to pick a food item from the refrigerator, and to estimate how much sugar, salt and oil in that food. Then the fun smashing begins. After the food being smashed, kids can watch sugar, salt, and oil go to three glasses. It can be quite amazing to see the amount of oil in some food. Kids then can compare the actual amount of sugar, salt, oil in the food to their estimates and to the recommended amount for each meal.
All food items in the game are arranged by refrigerators. Not all refrigerators are available at the beginning of the game. Kids have to win stars and gold carrots by correctly estimating the nutrient level of each food. After they win enough carrots, they can unlock more refrigerators to have more food to smash! There are 12 refrigerators right now, including newly added Thanksgiving meals. Looks like the developers are adding new refrigerators regularly.
Nutrient information of each food item is provided in the app. Kids can refer to the information by tapping the little red icon with “I” on it. However the information is provided in the unit of “gram” or “mg”. To play the game, kids have to do some math to convert these into “cubes” for sugar, “tsp” for salt and oil. This is only if the kids want to have “educated” estimates. If the kids are too young to do the math or if they are not in the mood, it is totally ok to just guess the numbers.
iGameMom Comments:
Smash Your Food is a fun way teaching kids about healthy food choices. The smashing videos are real, including the sound effect! It is messy (on the screen) and all kids would love to watch. I like they show a screen with all three groups of numbers: recommended intake level for the child’s age and activity level, the child’s estimates, and the actual nutrient level. It gives parents a great tool to start the talk about healthy food choices.
There are options to buy more gold carrots via In-App Purchase if the child wants to unlock refrigerators quickly. However, if they get all the estimates correct, they will always be able to get enough carrots to unlock the next refrigerator. If they don’t get it right the first time, they can try again, till they get it right.
Smash Your Food works on iPhone, iPod and iPAD. It is FREE on App Store. There is a HD version for iPAD, which is $2.99. The game is also available on their website. You can click HERE to play on the website, it is free also.
If you would like to check it out or purchase it, please use the App Store button provided below. The cost is the same to you, but iGameMom gets a small percentage. Thanks for your support! Note: The button works for all countries.
Free: HD ($2.99):
Looking for more apps teaching kids nutrition and healthy food choices? Check out the free app Cooking Fun for Kids and 2 Cooking Apps of Food Kids Can Make.
More Fun Ideas on Nutrition for Kids:
Find the Letter N is for Nutrition
Healthy Alternatives to Kids Junk Food for the Outdoors
How to Reduce Sugar Intake in Kids
Healthy Meal Planning with Kids
Healthy Nutrition Books for Kids
Kids Nutrition Activities with Free Printables
Healthy Food Group Worksheets
Nutritional and Fun Snacks for Kids: Paw Patrol Themed Badge
This seems like a good game to help teach kids about good nutrition. Thanks for sharing
Fun game, I like the concept. I tried to download it on my iphone and the free version is only available on ipad. ipad it is, then. Thanks for the rec!
It’s an awesome post in support of all the internet viewers; they will obtain benefit from it I am sure.
I’m a Luddite when it comes to those app thingys but I had fun with the online game. Thank you for sharing.
Some apps has online version too. This one also has games on their website HERE.
That sounds amazing. And also unappetizing. But, I think that’s the point 🙂
ha, never thought about it that way. I guess you are right about the “unappetizing” part.
That’s a great idea. My kids are teenagers, but I think that would be good even for them. Thanks
I really think this is an app that everyone can have some fun and learn something.
I think I’ll be using this for myself.. then share it with my lil darling sister lol
Have fun smashing!
What a great idea – well done you:)
It looks like fun!
This looks great!
I just downloaded this and my girls and I tried it out. Cute and fun so I used your share on Facebook button too. 🙂
Great. Now you can test your family members and friends, see how much they know about the food they eat. 🙂 Thank you for clicking the button and sharing on Facebook!
I love this. Such a cute idea! Thanks for sharing!!
You are welcome. Enjoy!
My grandkids are a bit young for this, but I had fun doing it!
My husband and I had good time playing game too. It is fun even for grown ups.
Good idea! There is a slimming programme I watch sometimes, and the doctor does something similar.
I think people need visually see how much oil in the food to really take the fact in…