Food

Objectives In this section, you will… Examine the factors that influence their families’ eating habits. Use viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret a film clip. Determine how U.S. agricultural subsidies affect the prices of certain foods and the result this has on nutrition, health and the economy. Use reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret informational text. Learn about food deserts and the way they impact New Mexico

Essential Question/EEJ Focus Do all Americans have the same choices in what they eat? Why/Why not? EEJ total of 9 quotes Food Inc. 5 quotes “What’s Wrong with this Chart?” 2 examples “Food deserts limit New Mexicans’ access to food while community gardens offer alternative” 2 quotes

Freewrite Before delving into the film clips and the reading, take about minutes to respond to the following questions. 1.If you had a choice to eat anything for $5 right now, what would you pick? 2.What factors influence my family’s choices about what to eat?

Food Inc. Prompt Begin watching Food Inc. Answer the questions on the visual guide as you watch. Begin at 7:46 and watch until 17:00. Answer the questions on your own sheet of paper. Then watch “The Dollar Menu” from 38:53 to 44:30. Answer the next set of questions. Note: Food Inc. Questions located on the next slide

Food Inc. Questions Part I: “Fast Food to All Food” 1. Why were the cameras not aloud to view the inside of the first chicken hut? 2. What has happed to chicken farming? 3. What happens to sick chickens? 4. Why do farmers continue to work for these large companies? Part II: “The Dollar Menu” Agricultural subsidy – Tax dollars paid to farmers and large agribusinesses as additional income to allow the government to manage the cost and supply of specific crops. In the United States, corn growers receive the most federal assistance, resulting in an abundance of corn being grown and then sold at a low price. Other subsidized crops include soybeans, wheat, rice, sugar and cotton. 5. What factors influence the Gonzalez family’s choices about what to eat? 6. What types of food at the market and fast food restaurants cost less than fresh fruits and vegetables? 7. In the video, journalist Michael Pollan says, “We’ve skewed our food system to the bad calories, and it’s not an accident.” What does he mean by that? 8. What are the three “tastes” in food that we go for? 9. Why might income level be a predictor of obesity? 10. What is the health impact of a diet that includes lots of high fructose corn syrup and refined carbohydrates? How is it affecting the Gonzalez family?

Food Deserts Look back at the wiki and click on the following link: “Food deserts limit New Mexicans’ access to food while community gardens offer alternative” Read the article and find two examples to use in your EEJ.

On the next slide, you will data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows the price of different foods and beverages over the last three decades. The price of each food or beverage is set equal to 1 in January 1978, and the chart then shows how the price has changed since then. It’s a fairly striking pattern. Unhealthful foods, with the exceptions of cookies (the blue line), have gotten a lot cheaper. Relative to the price of everything else in the economy, sodas (the orange line) are 33 percent cheaper than they were in Butter (dark brown) is 29 percent cheaper. Beer (gray) is 15 percent cheaper. Fish (the yellow line), by contrast, is 2 percent more expensive. Vegetables (purple) are 41 percent more expensive. Fruits (green) are 46 percent more expensive. The price of oranges, to take one extreme example (not shown in the chart), has more than doubled, relative to everything else. So if in 1978, a bag of oranges cost the same as one big bottle of soda, today that bag costs the same as three big bottles of soda. Also worth noting: The average 18-year-old today is 15 pounds heavier than the average 18 year-old in the late 1970s. Adults have put on even more weight during that period. The average woman in her 60s is 20 pounds heavier than the average 60-something woman in the late 1970s. The average man in his 60s is 25 pounds heavier. When you look at the chart, you start to understand why. What’s Wrong With This Chart? By DAVID LEONHARDT

MAY 20, 2009 What’s Wrong With This Chart? By DAVID LEONHARDT

“What’s Wrong with this Chart?” Find two examples from chart to use in your EEJ.

Check List Don’t forget that your food station should include… a Free-write answers to the 10 questions from Food Inc. a total of 9 examples and explanations in your journals.