Taste 30 different plants a week.
Every taste becomes a card.
After you've eaten, tap the plants you tasted. Each new one becomes a card, and the week counts towards 30 different plants. One minute a day, on your own or with everyone at the table. No clean plate required.
In closed testing on Google Play. iPhone follows.
How it works
1Tap what you tasted
Open the app and tap the plants that were on your plate today. More people at the table? Hold a plant to say who tasted it. A lick counts.
2Collect the cards
Every new plant becomes a card with a picture, a fact for the table and a tip for the cook. Cards level up at 1, 5 and 10 tastes.
3Count towards 30
Every week counts towards 30 different plants, for you alone or for everyone at the table on one account. Achievements in bronze, silver, gold and platinum mark what the table did.
Why tasting, not finishing
The guideline comes from the American Gut Project (2018): adults eating more than 30 different plants a week had a more varied gut flora. Variety counts, not amounts.
At a table with children the taste is what counts: most need 8 to 15 tastes of a new food before they accept it, and in one home trial two weeks of a daily taste was enough for most to start liking the vegetable (Wardle, 2003). A lick counts.
Read before you cook
The learn pages say honestly what works at the table: why children refuse new foods, how many tastes it takes, and what backfires.
Questions people ask
Is Project Food a kids app?
No. It is an app for adults, on your own phone. Use it for yourself, or add the people who eat with you: one adult account per household, the others are names in it, not accounts.
Can the kids join?
As soon as a child can point at a picture. Toddlers tap with you, older children tap themselves. Refusing new foods peaks between 2 and 6 and fades on its own for most children (Dovey, 2008), so that is where the tasting count helps most. Without kids the app is just as complete.
Does a lick count?
Yes. A taste is a taste, whether it stays in or comes back out. The count is of tastes, never of empty plates.
What counts as a plant?
Fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains and ferments: 224 plants in the catalogue, each counted once a week. Coffee counts. Potato counts. Ketchup counts as tomato.
Where do I get the app?
It is in closed testing on Google Play, with the App Store to follow. Ask for a place in the test through the contact page and you get the link the same day.
What about privacy?
One adult account per household. The names you add stay inside it, there are no child accounts and no ads. The privacy page says exactly what is stored and for how long.
Tonight is a good night to start.
One minute after you've eaten. Taste, tap, count.
Get it on Google Play