play food -- plastic versus wooden

[brgnmom]

I was at Costco's earlier today and almost purchased the plastic play food set for $19.99 that a lot of you have been raving about. It seems like a good deal, considering that it sells for much more on amazon. I then hesitated though because I remembered how there are wooden play food sets from Melissa & Doug. They are around the same price, but come with less pieces. I'm just wondering whether you would recommend the plastic play food set over the wooden ones available. I know that AC moore sells the wooden play food sets, and that store offers 40% or 50% off coupons fairly often.

I'd appreciate your advice. Thank you.

[nrp]

I'm sure you'll get lots of opinions, but we have had a lot of wooden food and I bought the Costco set and am planning on giving away all (or most) of our wooden stuff. The wooden food we have (mostly M&D) chips really easily, and our dogs like to chew it up. It's also not nearly as realistic, and my kids seem to prefer more realistic food. I guess they don't have great imaginations, but oh well!

I have heard better things about the Plan Toys food, as far as chipping, but I've not been thrilled with our M&D food.

Oh - one caveat. DD loves her M&D cake. I am mainly talking about the "general" sets - cutting food, food groups, etc.

[Katigre]

Another option is felt/crocheted food - we have some of that and really like it (and also like our wooden food). We don't have any plastic food, but the plastic food I see gets bent and dented really easily.

[Seitvonzu]

i think the more "hardy" (and therefore harder) plastic food doesn't dent easily. we just got some fisher price plastic food from mil/fil and it seems to be quite durable. i have kept all my play food acquisitions wooden/fabric/knit (except for the melissa and doug ice cream cones i couldn't resist) until the inlaws brought the plastic "meals"-- we didn't immeadiately throw them away and lucy LOVES them. they aren't the healthiest things either-- pizza and a hamburger, fries and ketchup! (and some fruit and such too), but sh reallyreally loves them. her baby doll gets pizza and pepperoni for breakfast... my urgings to make her some wooden eggs go unheeded :)

we have it all. the only think i'm NOT going to get are the mega sets that have cardboard of any kind because i think those are very likely to get yucky. i've been warned. if lucy wants boxes, i'll just give her real food boxes and we can throw them away and replace as needed. my mom said she bought some toy food for the kids to get at her house and it's probably some cheapy mega set. i'm going to not sweat that because it will stay at moms... the wooden/fabric/knit choice is more about the food looking nice with our kitchen than a plastic issue for me. i do think the painted wood stuff can chip, but i still like the m&d sets.

[MamaMolly]

We have mostly felt food I've made for DD, with some plastic and a little wooden. With felt you can get pretty realistic and it is durable. I just prefer less plastic given all the plastic in DD's little world. I got a ton of plastic food off of Freecycle. It was overwhelming to DD, really. She dumped it out and didn't really play with it. So I pared it down to very little, and the plastic is mostly stuff like ketchup bottles and yogurt.

No matter what you get, remember that less is more. They really don't need a ton of play food. IMO that makes it worthwhile to spend a little more to get a few nice bits. Happy shopping!

[daisymommy]

We're a plastic avoiding family, for many reasons. Even if I can find "safe" plastic toys, I think wood is such nicer high quality stuff. We have had M&D and Plan Toys play food for years now and it still looks new.

[vonfirmath]

Be careful. There's a recall out Right Now in Canada for the M&D cookies.

[justlearning]

I think it depends on your kids. I had bought nice M&D wood food for them but it turned out to be a big mistake. My sons ended up throwing the food once and an eggplant put a big dent in our wall. Considering how heavy the eggplant is, it would have been much worse if it would have hit one of them. So, if your kids like to have "food fights," then definitely stick with plastic!! I got rid of the wood food after that and my kids enjoyed the plastic just as well if not more.

[DrSally]

If it's cheap, thin plastic, It's totally not worth it, you'll just end up with a lot of cheap, plastic food all over. I would try to buy fewer, nicer pieces. I haven't seen the Learning Resources set, but I assume it's the thicker plastic. Wood is good, but I agree that some of our M&D stuff chips. I love our felt food, but it doesn't have the weight that kids sometimes like.

[TonFirst]

I so badly want to love our M&D wooden food, but I totally bought one of the Costco sets last week. The M&D food is, as others have mentioned, very heavy. If it's dropped or hurled, it will dent our oak floors. It started chipping the moment it was out of the packages. I am forever glueing velcro back on to the cutting foods and cookies.

I am loathe to buy a tub of cheap, crappy food or - be still my heart - licensed food, but the Costco plastic food looks very realistic and like it's a heavier plastic. We'll see what the verdict is on Christmas morning...

[SnuggleBuggles]

The wooden food we have is not played with. Then again, the plastic isn't played with that much either. I like the felt food we have (bought on Etsy). I think of all the plastic has been used the most though. I haven't liked the wood much for the reason a pp gave- we have hardwood floors and it can ding the floor. It' just bulky and heavy.

Beth

[crl]

DS loved his wooden food. We had/have various Melissa and Doug sets that were gifts and a good bit of Haba stuff that I bought him. The Haba stuff is tiny and totally choking hazards. He got those after age three. I'm sure there are some chips here and there, but it has all really held up quite well to some serious play time.

We've played with plastic stuff at my mom's house and it's been fine for there, but I don't think it would have held up as well as the wood stuff has. Her stuff may be the cheap stuff though. It was purchased with the intent of living at her place and grandkids only visit a couple of times a year. I would definitely avoid any cardboard box type things. They get destroyed very quickly. (Plus you can just use your own empty food boxes for free.)

Catherine

[BelleoftheBallFlagstaff]

M&D has unique stuff, but Plan is GREAT quality. We have VERY few plastic toys, mostly Duplos...

[brgnmom]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your helpful responses! I will have to check out the Plan play foods & felt play foods (I saw some felt play foods at Kohl's) and then re-consider the Costco's play food. There were only 6 boxes left (yes, I counted because I was trying to figure out approximately how much time I would have left before the Costco's play food would be gone nearby).

thinking about the M&D products, I love their stamps and puzzles, but I remember now how my son's fishing set started to chip soon after he started playing with it.

[KrisM]

I am getting rid of our wood food. It's maybe 3 years old and is in awful condition. The kids like to play kitchen and the stuff ends up being washed in the sink. Wet wood food doesn't work well :).

Plus, it does hurt when thrown and some pieces are very small - the mushroom has never made an appearance here because it's a choking hazzard.

I need to look at Etsy to get some quick ideas for replacement.

[KrisM]

And wondering what the Costco set is? Link?

And I wanted to add that the Melissa and Doug cookies (that are recalled in Canada) do get played with a lot.

[brgnmom]

here's the link to the play food 3-meals set at Costco's ($19.99): http://www.learningresources.com/product/parents/shop+by+category/discovery+-+exploration/nutrition+-+human+body/healthy+foods+play+set.do?search=basic&keyword=healthy&sortby=bestSellers&page=1&

[egoldber]

We have lots of plastic play food sets (many gifts, etc.) and it has held up extremely well. The cardboard boxes that were part of one or two of the sets has NOT held up well, so be aware of that. Maybe get wooden "milk", "juice", etc. if you like and plastic other stuff.

[Melaine]

We really like our wooden M&D food sets. We have fridge foods, pantry foods, cookie set, cutting foods. The kids really like them. I will say that they haven't held up nearly as well as I had hoped. The paint has worn quite a bit, even on the two sets we've only had a month or 2....so I hesitate to say the quality is necessarily better. I just prefer the look and feel of wood.

[alirebco]

We have the Plan Toys food and some felt food and they are awesome. The M&D stuff will chip and not hold up as well, plus I don't trust them personally so we don't have any. However my sister and other friends do. I also try to stay away from plastic with the exception of Duplos so plastic food never crossed my mind.

[wimama]

We have mostly Melissa and Doug play food. A few pieces have chipped but it isn't too bad. My son mostly plays with them on a carpeted and soft laminate flooring. That said the plastic M & D fruit is his favorite set. He picked them out and paid for them with his own money, even though he already had the cutting fruit. Also, he likes putting the plastic fruit away in the plastic packing it came in, like a puzzle. LOL. The M & D plastic fruit and veggies are very realistic in size and appearance.

He is getting the M & D Vegetables for Christmas. He has a Pottery Barn Kids birthday cake. He loves it, but the candles don't stay on the cake very well. He also has a plastic pizza set he inherited from his cousins. He loves the M&D stuff, and I like having some toys that are not plastic.

[hillview]

We havr M&D and plan food and love it both. Plan is super nice and the M&D is great for cutting. My mom got a huge bin of plastic food which I hated and didn't last.
/hillary

[daniele_ut]

We are just getting into play food here, so take that FWIW. I decided to avoid most of the plastic and wood food in favor of felt and velour. I ordered some really cute fruit from Etsy and then picked up a set of Haba veggies at a local toy store. I also have a set of the Haba Petit Fours coming from Amazon with the Green toys tea set.

I just decided that felt food looked nice and would hurt much less when thrown, which it invariable will be.

[Fairy]

We're a plastic avoiding family, for many reasons. Even if I can find "safe" plastic toys, I think wood is such nicer high quality stuff. We have had M&D and Plan Toys play food for years now and it still looks new.

:yeahthat: We also have alot of Haba, but now that I realize that they're not all,necessarily, not made in China, I just kind of stopped going so far out of my way to do Haba and the like. I really REALLY like the stuff Land of Nod carries.

[goldenpig]

We try not to do too much plastic, but we have this set and it's great:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Giant-Play-Food/dp/B000BZ6U0I
I think it's the same ones who do the Costco set.