Abstract
Food education (FE) in early learning settings is more than cooking – it is an opportunity to experience food in ways that include cooking but go far beyond. Food education gives children the opportunity for exploration, experimentation, learning, teamwork, skill building and much more. At the same time, services must balance safety, regulatory requirements, diverse developmental and cultural needs, family expectations and practical constraints such as time and staffing.
The FE module has been developed to support Early Childhood Education and Care settings (ECEC), for children from birth to 5 years, to create food experiences that are safe, engaging, inclusive and responsive to each child, while reflecting current evidence and the needs of the sector.
This module aims to:
Provide ECEC services guidance on safety standards in food education, and support ECEC services to ensure food safety standards during cooking and food preparation experiences.
Shift the focus of food education from a sole focus on nutrition, to a holistic experience that considers child preferences and needs, food allergies, ECEC service resources, educator skill levels and awareness of risk.
To support ECEC staff to understand children’s developmental pathways and adapt food education to reflect each child’s readiness, preferences, and way of engaging with food.
Provide support to educators and services on how to plan and manage cooking and food preparation experiences. • Provide a Best Practice Guide based on current evidence and current needs of the ECEC sector and supporting the public health sector.
Provide recommendations that are informed by an understanding of child development, and the impact of anxiety on food preferences and eating skills for a variety of reasons, including food allergy, trauma, neurodivergence, and disabilities.
Keywords
food education, early childhood education, food safety standards, food preparation experiences, nutrition, child development, eating skills
Document Type
Other
Date of Publication
2026
Type of File
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
Version
1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Copyright
© Edith Cowan University 2026
Content Type
Full object
First Page
1
Last Page
120
Recommended Citation
Food Education Consortium. (2026). The best practice guide for early childhood education and care food environment: Module 3: Food education (Version 1.0). Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. https://doi.org/10.25958/d08d-nf30