Customer Reviews

Dr. Dreadful Food Lab

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My 6 year old son loves doing science experiments. We got the food lab on a Friday and have played with it the entire weekend....(it's only Sunday afternoon!)!! They give you numerous packets which I found out you do not only have to use the instructed flavor of sticky slime for the molds.....any sticky flavor will do. You can even use melted chocolate if you like! We liked having that option. The flavors can be a little nauseating....but it's supposed to be "gross" Most of the time my younger son (4 years old) would eat out inventnions. The edible fake monster skins is super cool. Yes, it would be difficult for a 5-9 yr. old to use independently, but if your a parent who LIKES to do neat stuff with your kids this is for you. It's obvious by the pictures on the box that they would need supervision. This toy is definately NOT for a pre-schooler. As far as construction, everything is plastic and needs to be taken apart and put together for the different experiments. It is quite easy to do and my 6 year old was more than happy to build the tower or dragster while I was getting the ingredients ready. This is a great toy and we are planning on getting refill packs as well as the Drink Lab. Awesome toy for a rainy day.!!!! BUY IT!!!!!!!

I bought this toy for my 4 1/2 year old boy. He LOVES it and we are having so much fun. We do an "experiment" about every other day together and it always has us laughing. Of course, he cannot read well enough yet to follow the experiment directions himself so there is no way he could play with this toy unassisted. But I bought the toy so we would have something fun to do together - - - I was just getting sick of baking cookies and making rice krispy treats. This is WAY more fun and leads to a lot of laughs. It you like playing with your children, this will give you hours of planned activities - - which is nice and convenient for this busy Mom.

I have four children between the ages of 4-10 and we have bought many "make your own food" kits. This one has been the best by far. The directions are really easy. My six and eight year olds needed a little guidance, but my ten year old was fine doing these by herself. The projects are all done very quickly (3-5 minutes at the most), and ready to eat right away. Even the gummy-type creatures only have to cool for five minutes. We have a candy-making kit from National Geographic and there is not one project in there that can be eaten in less than an hour and a half. A real bummer for kids!

Dr. Dreadful is also nice because nearly everything you need is in this kit. The only thing you'll need to provide is water. It even comes with its own measuring spoon! Some of the other kits require you to provide lots of extra ingredients and household items (sugar, salt, string, waxed paper, etc.) There are enough ingredients in this kit to make dozens of projects.

There are a lot of parts to this kit, so make sure all the pieces are cleaned up. We lost one little plastic disk (I found it on the floor and had no idea what it was so I threw it away) and now we can't make the gummy creatures very easily.

The Dr.D "experiments" are all pretty tasty, especially for kids. This toy has been a really big hit at our house.

Since I had always wanted a "mad scientist" lab when I was a girl and never got one, my husband purchased this for my 4 1/2 yr old son and I to do together. Overall, it's been fun. Everything but water has been included which is a plus. The "lab" comes with interlocking pieces which can be assembled in a variety of ways. I like this component because it helps children with problem solving, creativity and motor skills. The kit also comes with recipie cards and its own measuring spoon and beaker. It's really taught my son to learn how to measure. However, the recipie cards tend to generalize and direct you to refer to other recipie cards, which my son would not be able to figure out without my help. The steps on the cards come with both words and pictures which was a plus but they omitted some details that probably only a grown up would catch. On the other hand, the "experiments" or recipies go from simple gelatin molds of bugs to more complicated creatures that progressively build upon previous experiments. They also encourage creativity by giving further suggestions for mixing colors, flavors. I was also pleasantly surprised at how well the "experiments" actually tasted for a toy kit. On the other hand, if made as directed we found it difficult to actually fill the monster molds with the amounts directed on the "recipie" cards. Overall, this was a great gift because it got my son and I to spend some fun time together!

My 5-year-old son begged and begged for the Doctor Dreadful Freaky Food Lab, so we ordered it. Well, he opened it tonight and I realized what I had gotten myself into. It's a kit with about 50 plastic parts that I had to put together. The instructions were awful, didn't explain anything. It comes with all these little packets of powder that you mix with water and it makes a variety of edible experiments. Ugh... there's no way he can do it without my complete assistance. And the first thing that happened is we were in the middle of the Foaming Brains and my two-year old dumped it over. It went all over the "recipe cards" which have a nice coating on them, but aren't waterproof, so we ruined a few of those right off the bat. And this stuff is basically gelatin, and bright red and blue, so it was stuck everywhere. All the parts need to be hand-washed, not dishwasher safe.

The first gummy monster we made didn't turn out, but then we tried it again with the brain shape, and a different flavor and that worked well. My son doesn't like sour things, and many of the flavors are sour. So he won't eat half of what he makes. Not really worth [...] in my opinion.

Here's what's good about it:
-a great thing to teach measuring and mixing
-a great thing to just sit with your child and mess with
-there is a lot of powder included, so you can make mistakes and have plenty to try again. I noticed they sell refill kits for [...], not too bad.
-this would be great for older ages, (like the 10-yr old girl that reviewed)

Sure, it looks great on television but don't always believe what you see. This product is hard to use, hard to understand and doesn't work. The "jelly" candy didn't form. At best it was a sugary, gooey mess. We mixed the ingredients exactly as stated in the recipe to no avail. We were very disappointed in this product.

My mother recently went birthday shopping for my 1 year old son and she came home with the Dr. Dreadful Food Lab as a small gift for me. I was suprised given the fact that i'm in my mid 20's and haven't played with toys since i was 11. Fact of the matter is this kit was a blast from the past and i can only hope that there are toys like this available for my son when he gets old enough.

This was a huge waster of money. The directions were poor and the candy did not make what was presented on the box. My children were very disappointed.

My two girls and a couple of girl friends (9, 8, 8, and 7) used this kit. Of course, my 9 y.o. didn't follow the directions exactly and mixed it very lumpy. She didn't understand the difference between teaspoons(t) and tablespoons(T). We had a sticky, gooey mess on the table. I came and helped and it was a great experience after that.

Keep in mind that this is full-on sugar gelatin! Very sticky! I spread newpapers under the experiment and brought over a cup of hot tap water. This made the mixing much easier. You will also need to mold it very quickly so the gelatin doesn't set up. All that being said, it was a HUGE hit!

I am keeping the molds to use for candies, also will try to make with Jell-O. Don't forget to save the injector cup. If you mix your gelatin with enough liquid so it is pourable, the molds don't hold it very well. So you have to use the injector cup. Didn't like that they are not dishwaher safe, but not that big a deal. I did just throw away all the other parts (except the skull - that was cool!). The "lab links" were just box filler in my opinion.

All in all, it was fun WITH the kids. I may let them try it on our picnic table in the backyard this summer.

My son was so excited to try out his new lab. We did our first experiment, a gummy spider, and were left with a sticky mess all over our table. The mixture was lumpy no matter how much we stirred it. When we tried to inject the mixture into the mold, the pieces of the mold and the injector tip did not fit together tightly and all of the sticky liquid leaked out. We tried it again with hot water and a different mold, but had the same result. My son doesn't even want to attempt the other experiments now. This toy is truly dreadful!