:: Specific Design Brief

CAT 3: Food - further information

FOOD TECHNOLOGY UK - ISSUES & RESOURCES

OPEN-ENDED BRIEF – The food we eat has a huge effect on the environment. In the UK it represents about a third of our total impact on the planet, as measured by the ecological footprint. Much of that impact is caused by the processing, packaging and transporting of the food.
Design one or more food items which will have a low impact on the planet, or a positive impact of some sort.

SPECIFIC BRIEF – School dinners often include a lot of processed and ‘quick’ foods, because of the pressures of cost, convenience and producing things that pupils will eat. Design a meal or menu for school dinners that is low impact, interesting and healthy.

Issues to consider
Food footprints
Food in season
Fair traded ingredients
Organic growing
Food and health

Sources of information
Food for All– John Madeley
The Hunger Business – John Madeley
Sharing Nature’s Interest, ecological footprints as an indicator of sustainability – Chambers, Simmons and Wathernagel ( £13.95)

Issues books - titles include -
Food for thought
Vegetarianism
The ethics of Genetic engineering
Forestry and Farming Litvinov, Heinemann. £5.99,

Big Barn is an organisation which gives information about sources of local food and lists what is in season
www.bigbarn.co.uk
The organic association – info for the general public and the Schools Organic Network
www.hdra.org.uk
Info on organic growing, including healthy school meals
www.soilassociation.org
Article in the January 2003 edition of Scientific American - “Rebuilding the Food Pyramid” on the latest version of the pyramid of a healthy diet.
www.sciam.com
New Internationalist magazine (the magazine may be in your school library) and website (search the back copies for food issues).www.newint.org
For footprint data on food - Technical Report of the Eco footprint of York (also Sharing Nature’s interest)
www.yorkfootprint.org
For information Fair Trade - www.fairtrade.org.uk
www.bananalink.org.uk
www.divinechocolate.com

www.foodandfarming.org.uk
www.grab5.com this is the alliance for better food and farming’s project to encourage kids to eat more fruit and vegetables
www.sustainweb.org

The Healthy Schools Programme is part of the UK Governments’s drive to improve standards of health and tackle health inequalities. Its aim is to make children, teachers, parents and communities more aware of the opportunities that exist in schools for improving health. There is a newsletter and, a young people’s network.
www.wiredforhealth.gov.uk