Create the future of food with children: Qualitative insights into children's perception of plant-based meat, fish, and dairy alternatives.

Children's food preferences are a major influence on what is served for dinner in the household. However, little is known about children's perceptions of plant-based foods. This study aimed to better understand how 9-to-11-year-old children perceive plant-based meat and dairy alternatives. Different types of plant-based alternatives were investigated: meat and fish substitutes (legumes, nuts), replacements (tofu, tempeh), and analogues, as well as dairy substitutes. These alternatives were placed in a meal context, considering the influence of dish composition. The study combined design probes, interviews, and cooking sessions as different qualitative methods to explore children's perceptions. First, design probe packages with creative assignments were given to the children. Afterwards, one-to-one interviews were conducted to elaborate on the input gained from the assignments. Lastly, children created in small groups a pizza with plant-based alternatives. Results showed that taste was the topic mentioned most in both positive and negative ways. Initially, children generally had positive taste expectations for the analogues, while their taste expectations for substitutes and replacements were more negative. However, during the cooking session, there was no considerable difference in their actual taste perceptions of analogues, substitutes, and replacements. This highlights the importance of studying perceptions of plant-based alternatives in a real-life meal context, where substitutes and replacements can, next to analogues, also be an integral part of a meal. Although previous research shows that animal welfare is an important driver for children to choose plant-based alternatives, this study showed that animal welfare is linked to plant-based meat analogues only. Therefore, actively linking animal welfare to substitutes and replacements may help to guide children and their households towards a plant-forward diet with more plant-based ingredients such as vegetables, legumes, and grains.