LAUSR

Abstract This study investigated how young children’s inductive reasoning abilities pertain to the food domain in comparison with the natural kind and artifact domains. Two research hypotheses were tested: H1) Younger children (4−5 years) exhibit less differentiated inductive reasoning strategies between natural kind, food, and artifact domains of knowledge than older children (6−7 years) and H2) induction strategies are impacted by the degree of processing of the food (i.e. unprocessed, sliced, and pureed). Younger (n = 44, 4−5 years) and older children (n = 52, 6−7 years) were tested as well as a control group of adults (n = 48). Results confirmed H1) and only partial results obtained from older children (6−7 years) spoke in favor of H2). We conclude that these pieces of evidence cast a reasonable doubt on the shared assumption that foods are natural kind entities, and consequently open new research avenues for evidence-based food education programs.