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Focus on the Facts – Learning how to read labels
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This year was all about Foods Class. My daughter was in grade 10 and the class that took the most attention this semester was Foods and Nutrition. Not science. Not Math. Not Religion. but Foods. In a million years would I think that this is the course that would be so impactful for her. I took Foods (Home Economics is what it was called in my day) probably around the same time of life. I was in grade 10. I learned how to handle chicken, how to boil and test for pasta for doneness and how to bake. If you know me you know, I likely failed the baking unit of that class. Heck, I probably just passed that class. There were many reasons why I like to cook but also many reasons why I wasn’t a very good cook. Having a father who was a chef meant I was suppose to know all about how to cook intuitively . It was in my genes they said. Well, they were wrong. I had to take Home Economics to learn the basics.
So when my dear daughter decided to take Grade 10 Foods and Nutrition, I agreed with some trepidation. Maybe she’ll be a better cook than I am. Maybe she’ll be a better baker than I am. Maybe she’ll learn how to eat healthy and well balanced. My dad was an amazing chef but using butter and salt sparingly were NOT things that he did. Following Canada’s Food Guide was merely a technicality.
So very pleased to see @Mom2Michael here. How cute is her son? We are going hunting foe clues. #Focusonthefacts
So when she started this class, I had no idea there would be field trips (to the grocery store). They were taught how to compare products, what you can used to substitute if you are missing a particular ingredients. They learned about reading the Nutrition Facts table on the labels. There is so much to learn. She loved it. I loved that she took the class seriously and that the teacher made sure that she kept the class interesting. What I didn’t like was the amount of assignments that this teacher assigned. Many a weekend were spent making Bristol Board diagrams and illustrations. There was even a video. A commercial she had to create to promote a sports drink. It was silly but funny and fun for her to make. I thought that she was too focused on this one class.
She should have taken Grade 11 Biology in Grade 10 like her sister did. That was a better academic choice. NOT FOODS for goodness sakes.
How wrong could I have been. I missed the point. C.O.M.P.L.E.T.L.Y.
Learning about food facts means that you are making informed food choices for your family. Not all things are created equal. We learn this as we walked around with our Kid Detectives. Armed with a lovely Sherlock Holmes hat and a great big magnifying glass we set out to look at different items in different areas of the store. We compared two grains in the baked goods, two pasta products and two canned goods. What we found out was that a package was not a serving portion. So you may think you are only consuming a few hundred calories, but in fact you had more than one or two or three servings in the package.
#Focusonthefacts
A photo posted by Margarita Ibbott (@downshiftingpro) on
I was fortunate enough to meet THE Kristina Matisic from the very popular Shopping Bags and Grocery Bags. If you’ve watched them like I have through the years, you know that they were consumer advocates or product testers on the Shopping Bags; and their newer series is all about cooking and making recipes appealing to your average person. Kristina is the ‘spokeswoman’ for this new campaign brought to you by various government and retail organizations to help the consume better understand how to read labels. The campaign encourages people to look at the NFt and start with Serving Size, found under the header ‘Nutrition Facts’; then look at Percent Daily Value (% DV) on the right side of the NFt. You can use the % DV to see if the Serving Size has a little or a lot of a nutrient – 5% DV or less is a little and 15% DV or more is a lot. New NFEC campaign messages will be displayed on food packaging sold by 21 leading food companies, and will be promoted on in-store material and at retail events (through 10 retail chains and independent grocers). Since 2010, more than 1 billion food products featuring on-package NFEC messaging were distributed across Canada.
Happy to be here in Metro #Etobicoke for the #Focusonthefacts event.
You can have some fun with this program by taking a quiz on the FocusonTheFacts.ca website and entering their testing your knowledge daily for your chance to win a $300 grocery gift card from RCC, FCPC and CFIG
The Nutrition Facts Education Campaign (NFEC) is a collaboration of Health Canada, FCPC, RCC and CFIG. Discolsure: I was a guest of the Focus on the Facts launch in Toronto and participated in an information session. I received perks for this but all opinons are my own. I’m happy to share interesting content with my readers.
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