Welcome in the new year by introducing or recapping healthy eating and healthy living with your students.

grainchain.com have a host of resources to help with this. Teaching objectives cover:

• What is energy
• how to measure energy
• how energy is provided by food
• the different food groups
• the role of food in the diet
• the Eatwell plate
• the foundations of a healthy balanced diet
• designing and planning a healthy breakfast.

For the 7-11 age group you can use the topic Energy in energy out which consists of two lesson plans, information pages, an interactive whiteboard game and some activity sheets. 

Also for this age group is Food for life a three lesson topic again with information pages, interactive white board activities and also videos.

 For 11-14 year olds our topic Healthy eating healthy living uses a range of resources including information pages, IWB games and activity sheets to explore food groups and test for fat, starch and protein.

Also for that age group are is the topic The balancing act: energy in energy out.  This lesson looks at the role of energy; how we get this from food; the pattern of energy intake during the day and goes on to creating and planning meals and menus.

Children’s understanding and experience of food issues is better than many people think, according to the results of research recently carried out with over 2,500 school-age children.

The research, commissioned by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) in conjunction with Farming and Countryside Education (FACE), found that 79 percent of children aged 7 to 11 said they had cooked at home, with 32 percent doing so on a regular basis (once a week).  The children described making snacks and sandwiches and helping parents prepare meals as experiences of cooking at home, alongside more traditional activities such as baking cakes.

grainchain.com has created a new Families section within the main website.  Incorporated in this section is a recipe section where each month a selection of recipes are showcased including a recipe for bread; a breakfast or lunch recipe; a main meal and a sweet or savoury bake.  November’s recipes include pizza scones; cauliflower cheese; and iced fairy cakes.

An article in today’s Times (The best thing that’s ever happened to sliced bread, Thursday 12 May 2011) investigates a great British invention: the sandwich.  Rumoured to have been invented in 1762 when the 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, wanted a meal that he could eat during his card game and requested sliced beef in between pieces of toast.

I was brought up in a world full of pre-packaged sandwiches and it seems incredulous that it is just 30 years since the first one hit the shelves: at Marks and Spencers.  Salmon and tomato apparently. Swifly followed by the now-retro prawn mayonnaise in 1981.

grainchain.com offers lots of resources and recipes for bread and flour.  Take a look at our section on where bread comes from to find out how wheat from the fields gets transformed into something we can eat; or be inspired by some of our tasty lunchtime recipes.  Try pitta pockets, or either tuna or ham & cheese wraps.