Twenty-four foods, offered a pair at a time, and a child says which one they would rather have. Nobody is asked to eat anything. Nothing on screen is labelled healthy or a treat, no pick is corrected, and there is no consequence to choosing chocolate every round. That is what makes the answers worth something: they are what the child actually thinks, not what they think you want.
The twenty-four foods in the deck
The list splits into three. Hot food and takeaway: Pizza, Burger, Fries, Hot Dog, Taco, Burrito, Ramen and Sushi. Sweet things and baking: Donut, Cupcake, Cookie, Ice Cream, Chocolate, Candy, Popcorn, Pancakes, Waffles and Croissant. Fruit: Apple, Banana, Strawberry, Grapes, Watermelon and Orange. Twenty-four in total, weighted towards food children have strong opinions about rather than food that would score well on a wall chart.
Every card is a large emoji picture with the name under it and a three-word line under that: Hot & cheesy, Crispy golden, Peel & go, Ring of joy, Movie snack. There are no photographs in this deck, and that helps more than it sounds like it should. An emoji pizza is every pizza, so a child is choosing the idea of pizza rather than one particular restaurant's version of it, and nobody gets stuck because the picture is not the kind they have at home.
Nothing is paired in advance. All twenty-four are shuffled and cut into twelve matchups on each load, so Pizza meets Burger some runs and Pizza meets Grapes on others, and reloading gives a different set entirely. If a draw throws up a comparison you would rather not have in the room, Skip this round sits in the grown-up controls.
How a round of the food game works
Two cards, a VS badge between them, and a pick is a tap or a click anywhere on the card. A or the left arrow chooses the left one, B or the right arrow chooses the right, R chooses at random, and a swipe works on a tablet. A Choose for me button appears under the cards while nothing is picked, which is the way out of a decision that has turned into a stuck moment.
The counter reads Round 1 of 5 at the KS1 ability level and Round 1 of 12 at the two KS2 levels. Twelve is also the number of matchups this deck can make, so a KS2 run works through every food in the deck exactly once and then goes straight to the results. A KS1 run stops after five and asks whether to keep going, which is the natural place to end a warm-up.
The results screen puts the top three on a podium, then lists the rest with the number of times each one won and lost, so you can see whether the apple lost narrowly or was never in it. Underneath that is a session log you can print or save as a PDF, and the overall winner becomes a sticker in the sticker book.
Upper KS2 swaps in the grown-up names
Set the ability level to Upper KS2 in the grown-up controls and every card in this deck changes its label while the picture stays the same. Pizza becomes Margherita Pizza. Ramen becomes Tonkotsu Ramen. Sushi becomes Salmon Maki. Croissant becomes Pain au Chocolat. Taco becomes Carne Asada Taco. Apple becomes Granny Smith Apple, Strawberry becomes Wimbledon Strawberry, and Grapes becomes Purple Grapes.
That setting is doing real work on this deck. A ten year old who needs an activity with almost no demand attached gets vocabulary that matches their age instead of a toddler word list, and the swap hands you a natural run at cuisine words, regional names and where a food comes from. It also quietly fixes the American spellings on two cards: Donut becomes Glazed Doughnut and Candy becomes Boiled Sweets.
Talking about food without turning it into a mealtime
Food is a subject most children have opinions about long before they have the words for them, which is why this deck works as an opener with a child who will not be drawn on anything else. The choice is easy, the stakes are zero, and every round produces something to talk about that the child chose themselves.
For a reluctant or non-speaking child the useful part is that a pick is a complete answer on its own. Point at the sushi, the card says Picked, the round moves on, and nobody has asked for a sentence first. What the adult does with that is entirely optional and always comes after the choice, never as the price of making one.
- Choice-making: two named options, both acceptable, and the child's answer is the one that stands.
- Preference words: I like, I do not like, my favourite is, I would rather have.
- Describing: crunchy, sweet, hot, cold, sticky, salty. The pairs hand you the contrast for free.
- Sorting: fruit or pudding, hot or cold, breakfast or dinner, eaten with hands or with a fork.
- Reasons afterwards: ask why the watermelon once the pick is in, so a turn never depends on producing an explanation.
- Something to take away: turn the podium's top three into a shopping list, a menu for the week, or a drawing.
What is on the menu
- Pizza
- Burger
- Fries
- Hot Dog
- Taco
- Burrito
- Ramen
- Sushi
- Pancakes
Questions about the Yummy Food deck
- Is the food picker game free?
- Yes, and completely. No signup, no download, nothing to buy. Everything the game remembers - your picks and the stickers you have earned - is kept in the browser, so there is no account to make and nothing to cancel.
- How many foods are in the deck?
- Twenty-four, covering hot food, sweet things, baking and fruit. They are shuffled into twelve matchups each time the page loads, so one full run at the KS2 setting shows every food in the deck once, and reloading re-pairs them differently.
- Does it teach children about healthy eating?
- No, and it does not pretend to. Nothing is labelled healthy or unhealthy, no choice is corrected and nothing is scored. What it gives an adult is information rather than instruction: which foods this child reaches for and what they say while doing it. Any conversation about balance is one you have alongside the game, not something the game runs for you.
- Can I use it with a fussy eater?
- It is a picking game rather than a feeding programme and should not be used as one. What it does offer is a way to name and rank foods with no plate in front of the child and no pressure attached, which is a calmer starting point for a food conversation than a mealtime is. Any actual eating plan belongs with the professional who wrote it.
- Why do the names on the cards change?
- The ability level in the grown-up controls, opened by pressing T, has three settings, and the top one swaps in longer names for the same twenty-four pictures - Margherita Pizza instead of Pizza, Pain au Chocolat instead of Croissant. It is there so an older child working on a low-demand task is not reading a word list built for a five year old.
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