Swiss Spaghetti

 This could be used in your foods classroom.  For younger students and newer teachers, I thought you might want to know were spaghetti comes from.

If you would like more information about growing your own spaghetti click here hopefully after checking out my amazon.ca ads below.    If you are making any   amazon.ca purchases  please click on my links below first as I will get a small commission on anything you buy even if it is something else as long as it is within 24 hours.   Thanks.  Remember you can follow me by clicking on the blue follow button above. This post may contain affiliate links that earns me  a commission at no extra cost to you. 

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Iron in Cereal

You can use a magnet to show that there is iron in your cereal.  From Steve Spangler's website "Many breakfast cereals are fortified with food-grade iron (chemical symbol: Fe) as a mineral supplement. Metallic iron is digested in the stomach and eventually absorbed in the small intestine. If all of the iron from your body were extracted, you’d have enough iron to make two small nails."  To see the website click here.

Too Much Sugar

If you teach Health, Physical Education or Foods you might want to look at these sites/videos that Richard Byrne posted.  They all deal with sugar and our bodies.  The first one is Rethink Your Drink which is a pdf document dealing with how much sugar is in most drinks and lists alternatives.  To see the website click here.  The next two were videos.  The first is a TED ED lesson called How Sugar Effects the Brain and is embedded below.

Untamed Science offers another similar video on why we crave sugar and is embedded below.

Sugar Stacks is a great site to visualize how much sugar is in what we consume.

To see their website click here.

The Olympic Diet

If you have been watching CBC to get your winter Olympic fix you will have seen their ASAP science shorts.  Here is one you might use in your health or foods class.

Is This Product Healthy?

The following comes from Mrs. S. on TeachersPayTeachers.  It could be used in a Health class or Foods class.  This lesson has been downloaded over 11,000 times!  If you are not a member of TeachersPayTeachers you should as it is free to register and there are many free items like this there.

Ever had a student ask, "Is this product "healthy?"

This lesson includes everything students should know about reading food labels and gives the formulas to figure out if a food is healthy enough to be in school vending machine (if a school is classified as a "Healthy School" a product must be less than 35% fat end less than 35% sugar, or no more than 15 grams of sugar).

Have fun with this easy to follow lesson that teaches skills students will use for life!!

THIS LESSON IS INCLUDED IN THE BEST HEALTH CURRICULUM: A COMPLETE SEMESTER OF HEALTH LESSON PLANS AND IS ALSO PART OF THE "NUTRITION UNIT." (See links below)

The lesson starts with a 23-slide PowerPoint lesson and follows up with a worksheet where each student will pick a product or label and read it on their own.

28 pages of step-by-step teacher directions follow the PowerPoint and make teaching this lesson easy!

The PowerPoint will teach students how manufacturers may try to deceive consumers and why it's important to know how to discern the information on a label (beware of unrealistic serving sizes, deceptive servings per container, misleading container information, etc). Students will learn how to pick what's worth reading on a food label and how to understand a food label.


To download the Teachers directions in Word click here.  To download the student presentation powerpoint click here.  Mrs. S. link to this on TeachersPayTeachers can be found by clicking  here.

Map Your Recipe

With this website you can enter a recipe and you can find out where the ingredients were first domesticated. You can type in your own recipe or use ones they already have.  Then you will see were the items were first domesticated on a map.  As an example, I put in the recipe for Perogies ( a Ukranian staple).  Here is the map I received.

Resources on Food

Here are a few resources that can be used in a Foods and Nutrition class or Health unit in Physed.

How much sugar is in the food we eat.  They have many different categories and show graphically with sugar cubes how much sugar is in that particular food or drink.  To see the site click here.

The following is an Iphone app called Chew or Die created by The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  From Itunes, "Mouths crammed with hot dogs. Tears streaming down pie-smeared faces. Stomachs stretched to the bursting point. These are the less-than-savory images that "competitive eating" conjures. But MSI's new mobile app will change that. Download Chew or Die and you can start challenging your friends—and yourself—to eat healthier.

Chew Or Die is a food challenge app that encourages users to make small changes to their daily food choices. Regularly eat pepperoni pizza for lunch? How about trying veggies on top instead? Ok,you’ve got that down… now why not dare your Facebook friends to out-veggie your pizza?"

Too read more or download the app click here.