I’ve just finished reading Food Rules by Michael Pollan and I consider it a must read for anyone interested in eating better or teaching students to make better food choices.
This very readable, easy-to-use guide boils down all of the nutritional hype and conflicting advice that constantly assaults us into practical terms. This handbook lays out a set of straightforward, memorable rules for eating wisely. I highly recommend reading for your personal information and using it with your students.
Food Rule # 5 is one of my favorites.
“Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.”
Reading food labels we often come across words like ethoxylated diglycerides, xanthan gum, calcium propionate, ammonium sulfate, and fructo-oligosaccharide. Crazy right? Much of our food currently more closely resembles something you’d find in a chemistry lab than on our dinner table. The jury is still out on exactly the long-term ramifications of this disturbing trend.
Here’s an idea for making your students aware of the extent to which food scientists have invaded our daily diet. Select a variety of packaged foods that have long lists of chemical additives as part of their ingredient list. Ask students to create a “word cloud” by entering all of the ingredients in their assigned product at the website http://www.wordle.net/.
Print out the word art designs generated from the activity and then create a display in a high-traffic area of your school. Ask students to attempt to match up foods with the word clouds of ingredients. The display should generate some good discussion and draw attention to not only the composition of common foods but your program as well.
If you implement this activity, please share your feedback with us on this blog. Have a great week and make it a Fresh FACS day!
Ramona
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