Table Talk

Author: Sarah Pounders

Packaging

Much of our food is packaged for safety, preservation, and convenience. Even foods we eat whole, such as carrots, are available prewashed and packaged in handy snack sizes.  Discuss food packaging with your students. What are the benefits of packaging? What resources are used to make packaging materials? What happens to the packaging materials after you consume the food? Is all packaging necessary?

- Lettuce is a food crop you can purchase loose or prewashed and packaged. Hold a lettuce taste-test, comparing three different lettuces: lettuce from your garden; unwashed, unpackaged purchased lettuce; and prewashed, packaged purchased lettuce. Which lettuce tests best? Then have students devise an experiment to test the longevity of each sample. Evaluate the results, factoring in preparation time and price. Which lettuce is the least expensive to produce? Which has the lowest environmental impact?

- Measure packaging materials. Bring in a one-pound bag of baby carrots and the equivalent of one pound of carrots in individual snack packs. Enjoy the carrots as a snack or in a salad and preserve the packaging. Weigh the large bag alone and all the small bags together. Which method uses more plastic? Which type of packaging has the lowest environmental impact? Can you think of a different way to bring carrot snacks to school? (Reusable container.)

- Evaluate packaging to see whether it influences student preferences. Bring in several different brands of the same type of canned fruit or vegetable, and make a note of each one’s price. Empty the contents into dishes, being careful not to damage the paper labeling, and keeping track of which brand is in which dish. Conduct a blind taste test of the fruit or vegetable samples. Then place each empty can by its corresponding dish and invite students to examine the labeling. Did you notice a difference in taste between the samples? Looking at the labeling, which brand would you choose to buy at the grocery store? Did the can you selected match the sample you thought tasted best? Is packaging important to our shopping preferences? How do the prices vary among the brands? Is there a correlation between taste, attractiveness of labeling, and price?

Processing

In 1916 a grocery store sold about 600 items. Today, grocery stores sell thousands of products. Did we discover new edible foods? Probably a few, but mostly food producers began processing foods to create new products from existing ingredients. These convenience foods often require less preparation at home, but how do they rate for nutritional value? Define processed foods for your students. Have the class list processed foods they eat on a regular basis. Then ask, What are the benefits of processed foods? Are there any drawbacks? Do processed foods use more or fewer resources than unprocessed foods? Are they as healthy as unprocessed foods?

- Demonstrate processing using harvest from your garden. For example, if you grew tomatoes make a batch of salsa or pasta sauce; make pickles from cucumbers or jam from fruits. What resources did you use to process your food? (Electricity, tap water, etc.) Did the processing create any waste? What would the waste from processing your one product look like on a large scale?

- Compare products derived from one key ingredient. For example, if you choose apples bring in a whole apple, a jar of applesauce, a bottle of apple juice, dried apples, a container of apple yogurt, apple muffins, apple fruit leather, apple pie, etc. As a class make a chart listing each sample and the key ingredients added to it. How does the nutritional value of each product compare? Which product is the healthiest choice?

 

Transportation

Food moves across the globe in ships, planes, trains, trucks, and ultimately in cars on the ride home from the grocery store. What are the benefits of growing mass quantities of food? Are there any downsides? What costs are involved in transporting food? What happens when these costs increase? Are there alternatives to shipping food long distances?

- Visit a grocery store and search for the origin of different fruits and vegetables. How far did each one travel to get to the store? What means of transportation was used? Do you think it was worth the trip?

- Set up a taste test to compare a locally-grown fruit or vegetable (if possible from your own garden) to the same fruit or vegetable shipped from a distance (tomatoes work well for this experiment). Which tastes better? How do the costs of getting it to your plate compare? Which one has less impact on the environment?

- Investigate the localvore movement. Localvores are individuals who focus on eating foods produced locally. Check out The Mad River Valley Localvore Project.

 

These are just a few ideas to help launch your investigations. You’ll find more lesson and activity ideas in Farm to Table & Beyond, the new inquiry-based module of the Linking Food and the Environment (LiFE) curriculum series from Teachers College Columbia University. Our daily eating behaviors impact the global food system. Make sure your young gardeners understand the power of their decisions!