Where food comes from
Design & Technology · Early Years · The School
Grown, reared or caught
Apples, wheat and carrots are GROWN. Chickens, sheep and cows are REARED. Fish are CAUGHT or farmed. Find ten foods in your kitchen. Sort them into those three groups. Which group is the biggest?
Above and below
Carrots, potatoes and onions grow underground. Apples and dates grow on trees. Wheat, rice and beans grow on plants in fields. Lots of children get potatoes wrong. That is worth knowing. It is nothing to feel silly about.
What happens in between
Wheat becomes flour. Flour becomes bread. Milk becomes cheese. Very little reaches a shop the way it left the field. Every step in between is somebody's job. Follow one food from field to plate. That is a good piece of D&T.
A fish finger came out of a box. Before that, a factory froze it. Before that, it was coated in breadcrumbs. Before that, the fish was cut up. Before that, it was CAUGHT at sea. So — grown, reared or caught? Caught. Now try bread. Wheat is grown. Now try a sausage. A pig is reared. Now try a carrot. It is grown, under the ground. Every food has a chain like that. The shop is only the last link.
Not everything is ready at the same time
Strawberries are ready in summer. Apples come in autumn. Carrots and potatoes keep for months in the dark. That is why they seem to be here all year. Some food is not in season here. It has come a long way to reach the shop. It might come by lorry, by ship or by plane. Next time you shop, look at a bag of fruit. Find the little country name on it. It tells you how far your lunch came. That is often further than you have ever been.