Timed meals: feeding clinics recommend ~25-minute meals and ~15-minute snacks, ended calmly — the timer is the "bad guy," so you never have to nag.

From age 2 and up: pediatric guidance restricts screens mainly under 18–24 months. This app is a glanceable tool (like a wall clock), not entertainment — prop it up, don't hand it over. Under 2, use parent-only: you watch the timer, your child never needs the screen.

Helping works: children eat more of a meal they helped prepare — that's what the 👨‍🍳 star rewards.

Stars reward behavior, never amount eaten. Pressure and clean-plate rewards make picky eating worse. A tiny pea-sized taste earns the star — spitting it out politely still counts as a taste!

Attractive without being distracting: the journey timer, milestone sparks and surprise box create anticipation — your child glances to check progress, then goes back to eating. The buddy only reacts to real events (a star earned); there are no cartoons to watch. That's deliberate: continuous animation during meals recreates the distracted-eating problem.

The buddy tastes it too — once: when you tap the hello-bite star, the buddy eats the same hero food and says "Mmm!" Children copy eaters they like (modeling), so one shared-taste moment helps. It's deliberately NOT a bite-for-bite feeding game — that would glue eyes to the screen and turn into pressure to eat more.

Positive framing: both timer styles show progress being made, not time running out — the ring fills like a loading bar, or a big ball falls from the funnel into the glass jar about every 10 seconds (a full jar tips itself out and a fresh round begins) — starting with a drop the moment the meal begins (ball size adapts so the jar holds them all, and the sounds soften so it stays background, not entertainment). And the last 10 seconds become a big friendly countdown ending in a themed arrival ("Landed on the Moon!"). Therapists use countdowns as transition cues: the ending never surprises, so taking the food away never feels like punishment.

The Bite jar & Bite tank camera stays private: bite detection runs entirely on your device — the camera image is analysed in the browser and immediately discarded. Nothing is recorded, stored or sent anywhere, and the camera turns off the moment the meal ends. The small preview shows you exactly what the camera sees.

Sound tells the story so eyes don't have to: each journey has its own sounds — rocket whoosh, train chug, bubbles — that play only at real progress moments (quarter marks, halfway jingle, the buddy's "Mmm"). Your child hears "progress!", glances once, and returns to eating. We deliberately avoid random attention sounds: those would train the child to keep checking the screen, which is the distraction problem in audio form.

Keep the screen glanceable — prop it where your child can see the ring, not hold it. Mealtimes should stay screen-play-free.

Prototype note: taste progress resets when you close this page — a real app would save it.