Nursery Food: Food Production - From seed to plate

How the foods we eat are produced and arrive on our plates is not only a fascinating subject for early years children to explore but an essential foundation for making healthy eating choices later in life.

Lena Engel, early years education specialist, believes that learning about where food comes from helps children to 'make sense of the way the world works and make connections'. She says it is a subject rich with diverse learning opportunities - from knowledge about other countries and cultures to learning new vocabulary, watching plants and animals develop and seeing the transformation of food produce during the cooking process.

Michelle Smith, manager at Triangle House Private Nursery in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, adds, 'Helping to educate children about where their food comes from is all part of mindfulness. It helps them to make healthy choices and to be informed and interested about their meals, and we find it also helps them to be good eaters.'

Jo Parry, the cook at Tall Trees Kindergarten in Frome, Somerset, agrees, 'The more they learn about food, the more they enjoy and are genuinely less fussy eaters. For instance, a child is more likely to eat an apple when they have picked it from the tree themselves.'

SUFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE

While the majority of nurseries accept that it is important to educate children about where their food comes from, Ms Engel cautions that managers should also ensure that their staff understand the subject themselves. 'Many practitioners do not have sufficient knowledge about how to grow food or how to cook. They also know very little about where food comes from,' she says.

'They need to inform themselves through research in books and on the internet. They need to provide good reference books for children to browse and they need informative posters about all sorts of food sources, which they can display at children's height and talk about with the children.'

Stephanie Molnar, owner of Elmscot Group based in Cheshire, agrees, 'While many of our staff have plenty of common sense, there can also be misconceptions about food. We run training for the staff on food to educate them, but also as a crucial health and safety measure. They need to know what ingredients are in food so that they can ensure that they make the correct decisions when it comes to a child's safety, such as whether a child with dairy intolerance can eat mayonnaise or coconut milk.'

At Jubilee Day Nursery in Padworth Common, Berkshire, the subject is regarded as a 'learning journey' for staff as well as the children, with more experienced practitioners sharing their knowledge and experience.

'Sadly, some of the young apprentices that we have do start off thinking that everything comes from Sainsbury's and they need to learn basic food processes and things such as what is actually dairy,' says nursery manager Lesley Thompson.

FOOD BUYERS OF THE FUTURE

Talking about the origins of food is something that should be spontaneous throughout the nursery day, not just at mealtimes. The children at Coneygarth Farm Day Nursery in Haxey, South Yorkshire, have the added advantage that their setting is based on a working farm.

Owner Carol Cooper says, 'I want the children in our care to understand how important British farming is. I wouldn't want them thinking that potatoes grow on trees or that milk comes from bottles. The children of today are the food buyers of the future. If we instill how food is grown and how to cook with it, we'll help to instill healthy habits rather than a culture of convenience foods.'

At Coneygarth the children go to the farm every day, where they see sheep, cows, pigs and chickens. They grow their own vegetables and take it in turns to collect eggs from the chickens and even watch lambs being born. 'The children know the signs to look for if a sheep is going to lamb -lying down and panting - and they tell us and get very involved,' says Ms Cooper. 'The children see the blood and are intrigued rather than upset by it. They see the placenta hanging out and ask about it.'

While addressing the issue of meat coming from dead animals can be a difficult subject for even adults to think of, Ms Cooper advises talking about it in a 'matter of fact' way when it is appropriate. She finds that children can be very accepting of the facts, rather than upset.

Jubilee Day Nursery is also based on a working farm and the staff and children eat the lamb and beef that are produced there. 'When we first started to eat our own meat it was the staff who found it hard, but the parents love it because we know what the animals are fed and the food chain is small,' says Ms Thompson.

'The children know that beef and products such as mince come from cows and the lamb chops are from the lambs. They have the awareness that the lambs and cattle are farmed to eat, but it doesn't upset them.'

It is a subject that has been discussed by staff at Elmscot Group, with the daughter of a practitioner refusing to eat meat when she learned the reality at five years old.

Ms Molnar says, 'We feel it's a tricky issue and feel the onus is on the child to instigate the subject. We tell the children that meat comes from animals but not the nitty gritty that an animal has to die in order to produce food.

'If a child asks directly we will tell them that animals have to die, that they are killed quickly and that the butcher turns the animal into food. We will answer truthfully, but this has not actually happened yet.'

ACTIVE CONNECTIONS

Staff at Jubilee Day Nursery are careful to show children fruit and vegetables in their original state, such as a pineapple before it is cut up rather than just sliced or from a carton so they can see how it looks before and after. They also grow their own fruit and vegetables, which gives children an active connection between what is growing in the ground and the food on their plate.

'The children pick raspberries and runner beans and pull up the carrots and potatoes. We then take them to the kitchen to use or give them to the parents, although often the carrots are pulled up, washed under the hose pipe and eaten,' says Ms Thompson.

'Fruit and vegetables in the supermarket look perfect, but the children know that even though our carrots are "wibbly wobbly" they still taste good. There are lots of questions asked, which we encourage, and we look up answers on the internet if we don't know ourselves.'

Staff buy unusual fruits for the children to handle, smell and taste and discuss where they grow - whether it is a bush or on the ground or focused on the different countries they originate from.

'We print pictures off the internet to show fruit growing in different countries, talk about the warmer weather and look at maps to see where the countries are,' says Ms Thompson. 'We aim for the children to appreciate that not all food is grown in our country, such as melon and pineapple.'

OUR FOOD: POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS

One in ten primary school children thinks that bacon comes from sheep, while 17 per cent think that fish fingers come from chicken, according to research conducted by the British Nutrition Foundation this summer.

Although the survey of more than 13,000 school children found that the majority of children have a good understanding of food origins and provenance, there are still many misconceptions to be addressed. For instance:

• a quarter of five- to eight-year-olds and 14 per cent of eight- to 11-year-olds surveyed think that bread comes from animals
• over a quarter (26 per cent) of five- to eight-year-olds and 22 per cent of eight- to 11-year-olds think that cheese comes from plants
• nearly a fifth of primary school children said that potatoes come from animals
• almost a quarter of primary school children, plus more than one in ten (13 per cent) of eight- to 11-year-olds, indicated that pasta comes from animals.

CASE STUDY: HALE DAY NURSERY, ELMSCOT GROUP

'We do a lot of work with the children about where their food comes from - ranging from growing their own vegetables and collecting eggs from our chickens to visiting local food shops, but even after all this some children still have the misconception that all food comes from Tesco,' says Elmscot Group owner Stephanie Molnar.

'It can take a long time for the understanding to come through. Children need to consistently get the message from teaching staff and parents that "yes the food may be bought at the supermarket, but how did it get there?"

'We think it is important to allow children to appreciate how food grows, how it is produced, and seasonal foods to help them also learn about their environment so we grow vegetables in an allotment. The children are involved in the planting and then watch it grow.

'Even if the plants don't grow it still gives the children opportunity to learn because we can discuss why they haven't thrived - whether they have not had enough sun, or perhaps too much water. We find that many children will try food when they have seen it grow because it is interesting and exciting.

'A local greengrocer provides our fruit and vegetables. His shop is in walking distance so we make up shopping lists with pictures and the children make their choices and discuss with the greengrocer about where the food comes from. We've also visited a fishmonger so the children can see the whole fish. The fishmonger then gutted and filleted it for them and we bought a selection to try at nursery.

'Children have also enjoyed being given a pound and allowed to choose something in the bakery at our local supermarket, which encouraged them to look at the different produce. They then took the item to a checkout, which the manager had kindly set aside for us, and bought it before eating it.

'We also do lots of baking, especially bread. We feel it is important for children to see the raw ingredients and how they can be transformed.

'Staff have made displays for the nursery showing the origins of food in a simple manner - such as a picture of a chicken along with a chicken drumstick and eggs so that children know they all originate from the same creature. A cow may have butter, mince and ice cream beside it. These have been adapted from posters we've seen on the internet.'

LEARNING ABOUT FOOD: HINTS AND TIPS

• Having staff members sitting and eating with the children allows them to discuss the food on their plates as well as modelling table manners.
• Make use of your local environment by visiting bakeries, butchers and fishmongers to see the different produce.
• When cooking with children experiment with different methods such as cooking, roasting, boiling and grilling so that children can experience how different cooking methods help the food taste different.
• Grow fruit and vegetables with the children, even on a small scale in pots, and look at pictures to enable children to observe how they grow - for example, carrots in the ground or berries on a bush.
• Buy different fruit and vegetables for the children to sample to broaden their knowledge, experiences and confidence; encourage them to use their senses to feel the surface of produce, and investigate the skin, flesh, smells and tastes.
• While concepts of sustainable development may be too complicated to discuss with young children, they can look at maps to see where food comes from, discuss the different climates and seasons and talk about how food is preserved and transported.
• Use story books to illustrate where food comes from. Try acting out 'The Enormous Turnip', for example, and change it to other vegetables that also grow in the ground.

ORIGINS OF FOOD: USEFUL BOOKS

• Beans on Toast by Paul Dowling - explains the life of beans, from stalk to plate.
• To Market, To Market by Nikki McClure - follows a mother and son on their weekly visit to a farmers' market, and shows how their food was grown or produced.
• Secrets of the Garden: Food chains and the food web in our backyard by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld - Alice reports on what happens to the vegetables that her family have planted, including the birds and animals that eat the insects that come to eat the plants.
• The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons - follows all types of vegetables, including leaf, root and stem, from the ground to the store.
• The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons - tracks milk from the cow, with its four-stomach method of producing milk, to the shop.
• Eddie's Garden: and How to Make Things Grow by Sarah Garland - earth, rain, sun and all sorts of creatures all help Eddie's garden to look magnificent, from its stringy beans to its sunflowers.
• Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert - a father and child share the joys of planting, watering and harvesting vegetables, which they then cook up into the best soup ever.
• Eating the Alphabet: fruits and vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert - produce from around the world.
• Vegetables: my first discoveries by Gilbert Houbre - an introduction to different vegetables and the secrets of the kitchen garden.

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