This is a busy time of year for celebrations.  No sooner have we finished harvest and Diwali celebrations and than we move on to Halloween, Guy Fawkes Nights and Eid Al Adha.

For Guy Fawkes Night why not bake some traditional Yorkshire Parkin.  There is a delicious recipe on our sister organisation's website. Start baking soon though as the cake is best left for  a few days before eating.

Eid Al Adha is an Islamic festival which in the Gregorian calendar falls this year on 6 November.  Celebrations include family meals, most typically lunches and late breakfasts. This month our new Families section is showcasing Strawberry 'yoghurt' and cinnamon dippers which is a brilliant recipe for a leisurely breakfast and one which children of all ages will be able to enjoy preparing; and a fantastic Pizza scone recipe which is ideal for a shared lunch or for school lunches later in the week.  The scone base means that the pizzas are prepared and baked in a fraction of the time of a traditional pizza.

grainchain.com has recently it's Inspire! competition. Have you got what it takes to inspire your teaching colleagues? Do you cook with flour in the classroom?  We are looking for inspirational lesson plans involving the practical use of flour which stimulate learning in one of the following five areas:

• baking for celebration events
• exploring a variety of different flour and grains;
• incorporating local ingredients;
• making the most of seasonal foods;
• celebrating bread making and/or cake making skills.

So if you do some work on the celebrations above, why not enter our Inspire! competition. You could win a baking masterclass with Paul Hollywood as well as £500 for your school. For more details see www.grainchain.com/competitions

Welcome to the new look grainchain.com website. We asked for your feedback and based on this we have launched our new and improved educational resource for teachers.

grainchain.com remains a curriculum linked resource for teachers but also includes a new families section so that learning can continue outside of the classroom.  It provides teachers with all of the educational resources they need in order to teach children about where grain based foods come from and their nutritional value. As well as resources such as lesson plans, activity sheets and interactive whiteboard activities to help teachers with their lesson planning, the site also includes many fun and exciting games, videos, podcasts and recipes which children will enjoy playing, watching, listening to and trying out. These interactive, educational activities and easy to make recipes, not only develop children’s knowledge of grain based foods but also build their cooking ability and confidence.

Furthermore, an events section has been created to give you the lowdown on food related, educational events which are taking place up and down the country such as the Taste Adventure with Slow Food UK. Teachers can also find information on how to get involved in the cooking demonstrations and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities that grainchain.com offers. Furthermore, the new families section of the website means that learning can also be taken out of the classroom environment and back into the home.

The United Nations, as part of its Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, has designated 30 July as the International Day of Friendship.

The UN recognises the importance and value of friendships. Friendships, between individuals, countries, organisations, and cultures can inspire peace, transcend differences and provide opportunities to grow. grainchain.com has a handout on special days for families and friends which investigates how celebrations for individuals vary across cultures from Saints Days in Italy to Mother’s and Father’s Days.

The end of term might be an ideal opportunity to reaffirm the friendships between your students before the long summer break. Why not get them making cards or cooking fairy cakes to share.

One-in-eight parents thinks that their children are fat – and most of them confess to being part of the problem; by giving them foods high is sugar and/or fat.  Half of them would also like to do more exercise with their children but cited lack of time as an issue, a study revealed yesterday.

Parents and schools can help with a whole-family or whole-school approach.  grainchain.com has developed a number of teaching resources looking at getting the right balance of food to match lifestyle of each individual. 

You can teach your class how to measure their activity using pedometers (which are available from as little as £2 each) and using the Eat Well plate they can design their own healthy balanced menu.

We have lesson plans, activity sheets and complimentary resources on energy balance and healthy eating for both the 7-11 and the 11-14 age groups. Follow the links below to download them.  They are all free of charge and there is no registration necessary.

7-11 Lesson plans and classroom resources

11-14 Lesson plans and classroom resources

Also available is a fun, end of year activity – The Energenie Energy Trail.  An online interactive board game where children play individually rolling the dice, answering questions, avoiding forfeits and getting round the board.  You can play here.

Pasta, in all its shapes and sizes, is loved the world over and can now call itself the world’s favourite food. In a global survey by Oxfam, pasta has overtaken other staples such as meat and rice to be the most widely eaten food as it soars in popularity in countries such as Brazil and South Africa.

Italy remains the number one producer and consumer of pasta.

Each region of Italy has its own variations and specialities. The most popular shapes are conchiglie (shells) and farfalle (bow ties).

By Italian law, all pasta made there must use durum wheat. This wheat is different to the wheat grown to make bread flour; having a higher gluten content and typically being more golden in colour hence the yellowy colour of pasta.

grainchain.com has a whole section on the science of baking. Aimed at 11-14 year olds this section aims to uncover the science behind the remarkable natural processes involved in making bread rise including the role that gluten plays.

You may also like to indulge in the world’s favourite foodstuff and get cooking. We have a quick, simple, tasty and nutritious recipe for tuna pasta bake that should feed a group of four.

A drought will be declared later today (Friday 9 June) in parts of the East Midlands and East Anglia.  The Government says that certain parts of the surrounding areas are experiencing their driest spring conditions since 1990.

The Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, will hold a ‘drought summit’ today involving farmers, water companies, the Met Office, and business and environmental groups to review the impacts of the weather and discuss strategies.

Farmers in the Fens have offered to irrigate crops at night which would reduce evaporation thereby using less water.

The National Farmers’ Union says the drought could reduce yields of wheat and barley in affected areas by up to 20 per cent; but added that this was unlikey to change food prices as these are determined globally.

grainchain.com has a number of complementary resources to this story.  They are all free of charge, easy to download and mostly available in an editable format.  Why not explore with your students how their food is grown; how farmers manage productivity today with sustainability tomorrow; the contribution farming makes to the economy; and the UK wheat market.  Housed within two sections on sustainable development, these resources are written for 11-14 and 14-16 age ranges. 

Also, for the 14-16 age group we have developed a podcast where teenager Katie explores food prices and food shortages.

Welcome to your quick guide to celebrating World Environment Day (WED) on 5 June, 2011.

This year, WED supports the UN’s International Year of Forests with the theme, Forests: Nature at Your Service, which underscores the many essential life-sustaining values that forests provide and the intrinsic link between our quality of life and the health of forest ecosystems.

For all seven billion of us, our present and our future depend on conserving and restoring the world’s forests. On WED, why not resolve to do more to ensure that we continue to enjoy the important services that forests provide, in our generation and the next.

On the grainchain.com site you will find a section aimed at 14-16 year olds, but which can be adapted for other ages, focusing on all aspects of wheat farming including sustainable development, the use of pesticides and a case study of a real life farm.  Also relevant is a podcast on ‘food and values’ which investigates factors influencing consumers in the food choices they make.

An article published in Obesity journal found that eating breakfast reduces food cravings, while those that skip breakfast can end up snacking and overeating, especially at night.

Currently it is thought that as many as six out of 10 adolescents skip breakfast; so researchers at the University of Missouri conducted a three-week study of a group of teenagers who usually skip breakfast.  One group continued to miss breakfast while the other group now consumed a 500-calorie breakfast containing cereal and milk.  At the end of each week volunteers completed a questionnaire and underwent a brain scan. 

Finding show that those who ate breakfast felt fuller and less hungry throughout the day than breakfast skippers.  Brain scans show that breakfast eaters experienced less activity in the areas responsible for controlling food motivation and reward.

grainchain.com has several related resources for various age groups.  For 7-11 and 11-14 year olds we have complete sections on balancing energy input with energy output which also includes a section to design ones own breakfast.