Fun with Food

Project Description

Fun with Food is a mobile application that encourage food insecure single parents in Los Angeles to cook healthy meals for their families while also promoting healthier eating habits for children with fun mobile cooking games.

Problem

‍Research has shown that food insecurity for families with children was at 14.8% compared to those without children at 8.8%. That’s nearly a double the amount. 332,000 families with children were either hungry or skipped meals; and 20.4% of those food insecurities come from being jobless due to Pandemic. There are many different underlying reasons on why food insecurity becomes a problem. Single parents are often working full time jobs resulting in lack of time; and lack of income per month could really hurt families with nutritious and quality family time. And while there are programs available out there that these families could use to get some assistance, it’s not always readily available or the process of obtaining the help could take months and be stressful.​​​​​​​

Insights

‍Design team scheduled interviews with two different single mothers, Lee Puckhaber and Scarlet Carter to gain more insights on this problem. Lee, 44 years old, single mother of 2 children: Rylee (23) and Hayes (6) told us about how insecure she felt feeding her first child and often had to pre-order groceries in order to save time. Scarlet, 23 years old, single mother of Elliot; feels that she just does not have enough time with her son. One of the quotes that stuck with us was, “I definitely feel like I never have enough time with my kid.. But I understand that it’s my responsibility to be able to financially support myself and my son”. Scarlet mentioned that while her son is extremely picky with food, she was able to have a breakthrough moment when they started cooking together, giving him courage to try new things.

Solutions

‍The solution was Fun With Food, a mobile application that allows parents to cook healthy and delicious meals with pantry-provided foods for the whole family. Fun With Food is a free application that directly partners with local food banks to provide fresh produce and groceries for food insecure families residing in Los Angeles. It allows a detailed personalization to accommodate the specific food niche and preferences while also providing easy to follow recipes with the products that are provided in the box. However, what makes this application unique is that it also provides a fun cooking game for children based on the weekly recipes that are provided. There are achievements for each finished step, motivating children to be involved in the food prepping process safely while also sparking interest to try a variety of food. Fun with Food can save time, allow families to bond, and most importantly, address stigma surrounding low income allowing people to feel comfortable while reaching out for help.