Financial Literacy: Food 4 Thought
Introduction
There are many factors that influence our food purchase decisions and we hold each of those factors at different levels of importance. Some buy food purely based on cost, while others may look for labels that deem a food more nutritious, humane, or environmentally responsible.
Current events may also impact food purchase decisions. The pandemic, for instance, has had many people concerned about food distribution, availability, and safety. Meat supplies dropped due to processing and packing plant closures. Farmers had to take drastic steps to manage livestock they were not able to send for processing. Consumers were limited on what they could purchase, and prices increased, yet farmers were not seeing increased profits.
To curtail worry, many consumers looked to buy meat directly from farmers. Consumers found out quickly, however, that many local farmers and processors were not equipped to serve the dramatic increase in demand.
This is just one example of how complex our food system is, and thankfully markets are slowly returning to pre-pandemic balance with some insightful adjustments.
This lesson looks at food choices and the impacts our choices make. We will explore the science and economics of sustainability, environmental impact, production location (local food), animal production issues, biotechnology, chemical and antibiotic use, and more.
The Food for Thought activity will gauge what is currently important to students when it comes to food decisions. This activity also encourages research, forming and communicating opinions, and a writing component could be included. NOTE: To manipulate the Google Drive file, you must save a copy to your Google Drive/Classroom.
Kentucky Academic Standards
Meets Middle School Financial Literacy Standards:
FL.M.7 - Apply decision making strategies when buying products.
FL.M.8 - Compare and evaluate products and services based on major factors (e.g., brand name, price, quality feature, availability) when making consumer decisions.
FL.M.9 - Investigate how culture, media and technology impact the family and consumer decision making by:
a. explaining ways consumer buying practices are influenced by social factors, economic principles, peer pressure, desire for status and advertising techniques.
b. exploring the impact of positive and negative effects of advertising techniques (e.g., bandwagon, facts and figures, emotional appeal, endorsement/testimonials, free samples, coupons, use of gimmicks, misleading/false information, social media).
This less is a great addition to secondary Foods or Agriculture class.
Materials
Food Label Cards - One set for each group
Examples of food product marketing (containers or product web sites)
Colored markers - a different color for each group
Plates with the following terms for “Pass the Plate”:
Taste/Texture
Health
Production
Environment
Ethics/Rules
Economy
Procedures
PASS THE PLATE: Provide a plate with a term to each group (4 to 6) of students. Explain that these are categories of ways that food companies describe their food products. You may want to go through them ahead of time and provide an example of each. Ask groups to write down all the words (adjectives) or phrases they can think of that describe food related to the word on their plate. After 1 minute - have each group pass their plate to another group until every group has had the chance to write words on a plate. If you do not have plates, an alternative is to place the terms on the board or pieces of paper and have students work together to give examples.
Collect the plates and go through each. You may find that some terms may be on more than one plate and this will help you gauge ideas and opinions on food. For instance, “vegan” could be listed under ETHICS or HEALTH.
Discuss what makes GOOD food. Students may realize early that not everyone agrees about what foods are best. There are many different preferences, and that's okay! If you can encourage students to share why they have a preference for certain foods, that will start great discussion.
Use the first few slides of the Google Slide presentation to talk about food marketing and confusion and how we are to navigate what they all mean.
Next, provide groups a set of the food label cards. Ask them to think about what is important when they or their parents purchase food and then put the words in order of most important to least important. They must agree, as a group, of the order. Google Classroom-friendly version - NOTE: To manipulate the Google Drive file, you must save a copy to your Google Drive/Classroom.
Walk around and answer questions if they are not sure of what the words meant. You may choose to pull up the different slides in the presentation, OR have them do the best they can and then complete the activity again after they have researched the terms. Did that change any opinions?
After groups have finished sorting, discuss what the list of priorities look like as a large group.
What terms were highest priority (top of the list) for most groups?
What terms were often found at the bottom of the list?
Did it matter if someone in the group had a personal feeling toward something on the list?
Did any groups have strong opinions for or against a certain characteristic, and how did that affect where that characteristic fell in lineup?
How do some traits relate – what factors make foods more or less affordable, or safe or nutritious?
This lesson was developed for EngAGe Kentucky, a program of the Kentucky Livestock Coalition and Kentucky Agriculture and Environment in the Classroom with support from the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund.
If you are interested in having a speaker talk to your class via Zoom on these topics, please reach out to Jennifer Elwell at jennifer@teachkyag.org.