Play foods are excellent role-play toys for kids.
They are often used together with a play kitchen set. But they can also be used independently to introduce kids to a host of beneficial activities that aid in their development.
Pretend food sets come in a wide range of sizes, designs, colors and materials. As many as there are real foods, you will always find a make-believe equivalent.
In this post, we want to take a look at the best play food set for 2 to 4 year olds.
Melissa & Doug Combine & Dine Dinners – Best Dinners Combo
- 18-piece play set of durable realistic play food
- Includes steak, veggie patty, salmon, chicken, peas, broccoli, corn on the cob, rice and beans, burger bun, sweet potato fries, baked potato, cake, apple slices, cookie, ice cream cone, reusable menu card
- Solid plastic food pieces are realistically detailed
- Combine with other Food Fun collections to serve well-balanced pretend play meals
Get this complete set of 17 realistic play food accessories for your 2-4-years boy or girl child. Watch them satisfy their imaginative hunger with 9 different food combinations.
And be the guide as they explore their food-mixing skills, following the included step-by-step comprehensive recipe book.
Food to be explored include; fruit and dessert, vegetables and beans, summer sampler, and winter warm-up. Meat, fish, fruits, grains, and starches complete the set for veggies and all kinds of Westerns.
The whole pack is designed to last frequent use with sturdy plastic construction. And attention is paid to details for a healthy and dishwasher-safe dinner set.
Catchstar Play Food – Best pack with the most pieces
Expand your kids’ memorizing capabilities with a kinky kit of 340 food pieces.
The CatchStar multi-variety pretend play set takes outdoor picnics to a new level with Pizza, fries, hamburgers, biscuits and loads of drinks on the side.
If you are looking to bring life to that old play kitchen, this set of durable and portable pieces will fill the shelves to the brim.
All parts are carefully handcrafted for a realistic meal toy, with 100% BPA-free plastic safe on mouth contact. A mesh bag is included to make collecting the pieces easy for storage or mobility.
If you’re looking to gift a 2-5-years old child an educative, fun, and loveable birthday present, this is a lot of value for the money.
JaxoJoy 122-Piece Delux Pretend Play – Best fast food option
Introducing food varieties into their lives at an early stage helps develop a solid appetite in kids. The JaxoJoy all-new Delux pretend play set of 122 pieces of accessories is a role-play fun way to achieve that.
With the 10 canned food, 6 canned drinks, 5 bottled drinks, ketchup, and mustard, a complete picnic set is almost ready.
Buy yourself the needed time for the weekend chores as the children make tons of sweet treats from chocolates, ice creams, burgers, hotdogs, bagels, and cookies. They get to try out a series of veggies combinations with the collection of vegetables and fruits as well.
Each food is a colorful, bold masterpiece designed ground-up with zero BPA plastic. It is one of the best pretend playset for a 3-year-old in the market right now.
- 122-Piece Set - Includes pretend play toy fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, juice, drinks, pizza, burgers, french fries, bakery items, bread, cake, donuts, cookies and ice cream. This play set provides all of the basic food groups for little ones to prepare and serve. Boasting 122 pieces, your children will feel like they have their own little food store at home to entertain them for hours on end.
- Durable Construction - Unlike similar products by offered by competitors, each piece is expertly crafted using BPA-free plastic and are safety tested in accordance with CPSIA and ASTM standards. In addition to not having to worry about the toys breaking, the material is also easy to clean if needed.
- Role-Playing Fun - Boys and girls love to imitate their parents. With this set, they can pretend to go shopping, cook up a meal and serve you breakfast, lunch or dinner. Let their imaginations run wild with this vast variety of foods to choose from.
- Realistic Food - Bold colors and realistic designs make playtime much more fun. With bottles and cans, as well as condiments and spices, let your son or daughter whip you up something special as they get creative in the kitchen or set up a picnic for the whole family to enjoy, just like home!
Play Circle By Battat – Best for low budget
Do you have a pretend play pantry? Looking for a way to add a pantry to your kiddies’ play kitchen without the extra spending?
The Play Circle by Battat is a handy pantry set for hours of role-playing indoors. It comes as a sturdy, plastic container with a flexible lid easy to open and close.
Inside, your children are engaged with 8 different boxed food. A plastic chopping knife is included for a straight learning curve of how to cut vegetables and fruits and make veggies.
While this builds the children’s strength and focus, the chopping board comes with a set of hygienic kitchen activity tools.
Dishwash all parts after use at a single pass and store them in the attached lightweight storage container. The pantry is made more movable with a comfy lifting handle.
- Toy Food, Fruit, And Vegetable Items With Realistic Details Sized Perfectly For Small Hands And Bigger Imaginations
- Play Kitchen And Discover The World Of Pretend Cooking And Grocery Shopping; Works Great With Other Play Food Items And Accessories
- Includes: (1) Storage Container With Snap-On Lid And Easy-To-Grab Handle, (1) Cutting Board, (1) Plastic Knife, (9) Boxed Foods, And (67) Plastic Fruits, Vegetables, And Other Food Items (Specific Food Items May Vary)
- Teaches Role Play And Develops Fine Motor And Social Skills By Sorting Colors, Shapes, And Choosing Which Foods Are Healthiest
Learning Resources New Soup Sprout – Best for soup-themed play
Would you love to see them savor their taste buds with dishes of soup? Learning Resources New Soup Sprout expands children’s imagination scope.
It is a great way to develop eye-hand coordination skills and improve decision-making with 23 pieces of soup ingredients. A set contains 3 noodles, 3 celery chunks, wedges of onions, tomatoes, and potatoes.
All cooking is done in the 5-¼” × 5-½” space of the blue, sleek tureen. A yellow plastic spoon serves the soup into the 2 deep bowls.
Overall, the food pieces are made in soft, but durable texture with radiant colors for color-learning.
- Imaginative play with friends is the perfect combination to serving up a hearty helping of language-rich fun
- New Sprouts food are sized right for little hands to hold
- One-piece set includes 3 noodles, 3 carrot crinkles, 3 celery chunks, 3 onion wedges, 2 tomato wedges, 2 potato wedges, ladle, 2 bowls, 2 spoons, and tureen with lid
- Tureen measure 5½"h x 5¼” in diameter
Things to consider
If you are buying play food for a 2-year-old, you need to consider the following:
Safety
Many play food sets will include small pieces of fake food that may pose a health risk for the little ones. This is one reason many parents don’t buy play for less than 4-year-olds. You can remove anything small enough to enter their mouths as soon as the package arrives. Or order for only sets that don’t come with small pieces.
Other things parents need to be careful about are toxic toys. Even with the government’s best efforts BPA plastic toys with no labels still find their way into homes. Since this cannot be detected by merely looking at the toy, you need to make sure you only buy toys from certified manufacturers.
And wooden toys are not exempted. Some are painted over with toxic paints which make them harmful when kids put these toys in their mouths.
Leaning Value
Play foods are excellent learning tools for kids. They come in a variety of colors to represent different foods thus making them a good instrument for teaching color identification. They can also be used to explain simple math concepts.
That is why it is good to buy play food sets that come with lots of pieces.
