Info
Taste for Life - “Smag for Livet” in Danish - is an exemplary research and communication collaboration of scientists within the humanities, natural and social sciences, and practitioners within education and gastronomy, funded by the Danish foundation Nordea-fonden.
We focus on taste and the flavour of food as a driver for joy of life, health, learning, and culinary skills. With the resources of taste, we aim to release and activate the possibilities of a better and richer life for children, young people and adults in Denmark.
The centre involves researchers from the humanities (pedagogical and didactical scientists), natural sciences (sensory scientists and gastrophysicists), and social sciences (anthropologists), as well as educators (at preschool, elementary, secondary and vocational schools, colleges and universities) and chefs.
Through interdisciplinary research collaboration and communication to pupils, students and the broader public in educational institutions and festivals, we bridge different scientific disciplines in a close, collaborative effort, hereby generating new knowledge on taste.
The centre includes researchers from several universities and colleges, chefs from innovation kitchens and food colleges, and teachers from elementary schools, high schools and vocational educations. By integrating taste, learning, didactics and communication, our projects focus on three main areas:
- taste pedagogy and didactics;
- gastrophysics, sensory sciences, and the integration of scientific disciplines;
- and innovation and honing of culinary skills.
While we teach pupils, students and the general public about and through taste, we also study their use of taste, taste preferences, and learning processes by gathering empirical data for anthropological, sensory and pedagogical research.
For example, we have completed an educational theme week on taste in an elementary school, covering all subjects and all grades from 0.-8.th, by teaching about and through taste, while at the same time gathering data on children’s taste preferences and learning skills.
Taste for Life is non-profit, has no walls, and is funded by the independent commercial foundation Nordea-fonden. The knowledge and results as well as educational materials are publicly available and communicated to the general public using a wide range of means, including the website www.smagforlivet.dk (and to some extent www.taste-for-life.org), and a free educational app for teachers, Fag med Smag.
Please find below the contact information of the participants of Taste for Life.
