Veggie Magic. Creative learning programmes in early childhood institutions that promote children’s taste preferences for vegetables and expand the institution’s food culture in a greener direction.

The project Veggie Magic aims to promote the consumption of plant-based foods by introducing children in early childhood institutions to creative, vegetable-based activities. The project has two main objectives:

1. to broaden children’s taste preferences, and
2. to develop the institutions’ food culture in a more vegetable-focused direction.

In this way, the project seeks to lay the foundation for a more plant-based food culture that will accompany children into adolescence and adulthood. The creative activities include magical jewellery design and table theatre featuring vegetables, developed through co-creation between food innovators, organic farmers, early childhood education researchers, and preschool educators.

During the project’s first two phases, 36 one-week programmes focusing on seasonal vegetables will be tested. In the development and implementation phases, students from nutrition and health as well as pedagogy programmes will contribute to further developing these activities in 100 early childhood institutions across the Region of Zealand.

The project runs over a period of three years, and its final output will be an activity kit designed for early childhood institutions throughout Denmark.