LESSON #1

From Field to Hair Follicle: You Are What You Eat

LESSON
OBJECTIVE
POINT TO
PONDER
ESSENTIAL
QUESTION
CONTENT
Outline the content
you will teach in
this lesson.

I. DEFINE OBJECTIVES AND CONTENT

Students will examine and track the journey food takes from farm
source to retail store to their own point of consumption.
I have enough information about food sources to make wise
choices for my own health and societys future.
Where does my food really come from and what is really in it?
I. Our Food Sources
A. Current food supply system: global, national, local
perspectives
1. Location of fields where produce grown
a. Information found on sample labels
b. Distance travelled from source
i.
Foreign
countries - grocery store fruit from South
and Central America, Mexico
ii.
Different US
state - vegetables from California
iii. Local farms
and farmers markets - availability
2. Processed foods
a. Ingredient labelling examples
i.
List items
but not sources
ii.
What else
might we want to know?
b. Agricultural source vs. processing location of
ingredients
c. Approximately 70% of all processed foods
contain at least one genetically modified organism
B. You are what you eat: molecular perspective
1. Isotopic hair analysis
a. Hair is continuous
tape recorder of diet
b. Corn found to be
predominant source of carbon in many
Americans
2. Development of genetically engineered corn now
prevalent in diet
a. Agricultural scientists
introduced GM corn in mid-1990s
b. Production of corn vastly
increased
c. Uses beyond corn on the
cob vegetable
i. By-products
such as corn syrup, corn starch
ii. Feed for

Who Puts Fruit in My Smoothies & Why Is There Corn in My Hair?

Laura Chesnut and Brenda Saunders-Moultrie
chickens, beef cattle

What will students

UNDERSTAND as
a result of this
lesson? How does
this connect to the
Essential
Question?
What will students
be able to DO as a
result of this
lesson?

II. PRE-PLANNING
Students will understand that while the process of eating seems
simple, the food supply that we take for granted is the result of a
complex global system of supply, production, and delivery. They
will broaden their perspective of where their food really comes
from.
Students will be able to consider a food product from the
perspective of where its ingredients originated and how it arrived
at their point of consumption.

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HOOK
Describe how you
will grab students
attention at the
beginning of the
lesson.
BE CREATIVE.

INSTRUCTION
Explain Step-bystep what you will
do in this lesson.
Be explicit about
ties to Points to
Ponder, Essential
Question, and
Perspectives
here. Include ALL
support and
teaching materials
with your unit.

III. PLANNING
TIME: 10 minutes
We will introduce the guiding quotation, Start where you are. Use
what you have. Do what you can. by Arthur Ashe, which will be
prominently written on the board or a poster, and explain to
students that our unit will apply this philosophy to increase their
awareness and enhance their perspectives on food sources,
GMOs, and agricultural sustainability.
Todays hook will emphasize Start where you are. We will read
How Did That Get to My Table: Orange Juice? by Pam Rosenberg
while students sip an Orange Banana Yogurt Smoothie sample.
This childrens book will serve as a basis for students to examine
their current level of awareness of food sources. As a group, we will
brainstorm what information the book did not provide. (It is
intentional that the fruit in todays smoothie had a long journey.)
TIME:
(5 minutes) Students will answer point to ponder question on individual
-page copies.
I have enough information about food sources to make wise choices for my own
health and societys future. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not informed 0 --- 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5 --- 6 --- 7 --- 8 --- 9 --- 10 100%
informed
I would like to learn ...

Teacher will say, Now that you have a beginning perspective on

where you are in your awareness of food sources, we will continue

with what you have as resources to inform yourselves and heighten
your awareness.
- (10 minutes) Students will use laptop computers to watch TEDEd video entitled Food and You, http://ed.ted.com/on/7Y93o7Ig.
- (15 minutes) After reading the brief article The Fast Food Fruit,
http://nautil.us/issue/3/in-transit/the-fast-food-fruit, students will
complete fruit tracking activity to answer the essential question,
where does my food really come from? We will give each student
produce labels from different countries. They will pin labels to a
poster-sized world map and attach string from each label to a pin in
Winterville, NC. They will use GoogleMaps to calculate the distance
that fruit travelled from where it was grown to the local grocery
store. They will attach a piece of paper with the distance to each
string.
- (10 minutes) Students will watch the first 6 minutes of King Corn
DVD to learn how corn carbon is detected in human hair cells and
why corn products and by-products are everywhere. We will have a
short group discussion.

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ASSESSMENT
(Performance
Task) What will
the students DO
to demonstrate
that they have
mastered the
content? Be
specific and
include actual
assessment with
unit materials.

- (10 minutes) We will summarize and review how we are using

what we have to broaden our perspectives on where our food
really comes from. Tomorrow, we will turn our perspective to foods
containing genetically modified organisms, GMOs. You will start
planning to do what you can to raise others awareness in the
form of a personal position statement.
TIME: 10 minutes
Students will register as TEDEd users and return to the lesson
entitled Food and You, http://ed.ted.com/on/7Y93o7Ig, to answer
questions.
1. This video focusses our perspective on connections between
Aour food
Bour health
Cthe rest of the world
Dnone of the above
Eall of the above
2. We take our food supply for granted.
ATrue
BFalse
3. The business of food is bigger and more specialized than ever because of all
EXCEPT
Arising demand
Bgovernment support policies
Cconservation initiatives
Dpopulation growth
Enew technologies
4. In the 1980's, the average supermarket stocked around ___ products; now it
has ___ products.
A2,350; 21,000
B15,000; 50,000
C8,000; 80,000
5. Around 60% of food ingredients are purchased globally, providing
Alower prices
Bhealthier choices
Cgreater selection
DA and C
Eall of the above
6. Why do many people choose junk food instead of healthy food?
AIt's convenient.
BIt tastes good.
CIt's less expensive.
DA and B
Eall of the above
7. The United States spends __ of every disposable dollar on food; India
spends__; Nigeria spends __.
A34 cents; 27 cents; 23 cents
B40 cents; 70 cents; 10 cents
C34 cents; 27 cents; 23 cents
D10 cents; 40 cents; 70 cents
8. Production and delivery of food uses vast amounts of all of these finite

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resources EXCEPT
Afossil fuels
Btitanium
Cwater
Dland
9. Worldwide. agriculture uses ___ of available fresh water.
A12%
B35%
Chalf
D70%
10. In order to meet changing diets and growing populations, the amount of food
will need to double in the next ___ .
Acentury
B40 years
Cdecade
D5 years
11. Reconsider your perspective. I have enough information about food sources
to make wise choices for my own health and societys future.
Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not informed 0 --- 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5 --- 6 --- 7 --- 8 --- 9 --- 10 100%
informed

DOES THE ASSESSMENT ALLOW YOU TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT THE

STUDENTS HAVE MET YOUR STATED LESSON OBJECTIVE? YES OR NO
ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Insert ALL materials here including Assessments and Instructional Materials.
Explicitly LIST any additional files for this lesson. Be sure that ALL materials have been
submitted for this lesson.
Instructional Materials
- Laptops with internet access
- Trifold board with quotation: Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you
can. by Arthur Ashe
- Rosenberg, P. (2010). How Did That Get to My Table: Orange Juice? Ann Arbor:
Cherry Lake.
- Blender, cups, and Orange Banana Yogurt Smoothie ingredients (1 large banana,
peeled, sliced, frozen; 1 cup chilled orange juice; 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt; 4 ice
cubes; 1 tablespoon honey) We will use typical grocery store ingredients the first day
and progress to local Winterville farm fruit and NC yogurt on Day 4.
- Poster-sized world map
- Produce labels collected by teachers from winter and spring grocery trips
- Pushpins and string
- Projector or Smartboard
- King Corn DVD
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Laura Chesnut and Brenda Saunders-Moultrie
- Copies of Point to Ponder self-rating, 3 per sheet

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Laura Chesnut and Brenda Saunders-Moultrie

Name:

Date:

I have enough information about food sources to make wise choices for my own
health and societys future.
Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not informed

0 --- 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5 --- 6 --- 7 --- 8 --- 9 --- 10

100% informed

I would like to learn ...

Name:

Date:

I have enough information about food sources to make wise choices for my own
health and societys future.
Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not informed

0 --- 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5 --- 6 --- 7 --- 8 --- 9 --- 10

100% informed

I would like to learn ...

Name:

Date:

I have enough information about food sources to make wise choices for my own
health and societys future.
Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.
Not informed

0 --- 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5 --- 6 --- 7 --- 8 --- 9 --- 10

I would like to learn

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100% informed

Who Puts Fruit in My Smoothies & Why Is There Corn in My Hair?

Laura Chesnut and Brenda Saunders-Moultrie

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Who Puts Fruit in My Smoothies & Why Is There Corn in My Hair?

Laura Chesnut and Brenda Saunders-Moultrie

The Fast Food Fruit

The bananas journey from the plantation to you is one
long science project.
BY GLORIA DAWSON
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JONATHON ROSEN
JULY 18, 2013
A truck is traveling on the freeway. Inside, stacks of bananas are piled high. Picked a
few weeks ago at a plantation, theyve traveled overseas in climate-controlled cargo
ships, their color still green and unappetizing. But that wont last for long. A colorless
gas with a faint, sweet, and musky odor seeps from an open pouch placed inside the
truck, quietly transforming the fruit en route. By the time the tropical fruit is in your
grocery basket, they are a golden yellow.
This is not science fiction, but yet another attempt at perfecting the tropical fruit
delivery processa new ripening-on-the-go trick that Professor Bhesh Bhandari and
his Ph.D. student Binh Ho at the University of Queensland, Australia, are now
experimenting with. For the past two centuries, bananas have traveled the world by
all modes of transportation. In the late 1800s, it was by railroadstracks were built
solely for banana transport. In the 1900s, bananas were trekked in refrigerated ships
gleaming white fleets with radio technology that allowed vessels to coordinate
their arrival times with harvesting schedules. In his book, Banana: The Fate of the
Fruit that Changed the World, Dan Koeppel says that the banana industry invented
fast food in a way. A banana may be healthier than a burger, but how its brought to
you is not all that different. Before the fast-food industry learned to process, pack,
and ship inexpensive temperature-controlled meals, banana carriers had already
perfected their own shipping process. If you look at the model of the industrialized
supply chain, what they really came up with was a lot closer to what a fast-food
chain does, he says. The result is bananas that arrive at the market on their final
green day, and which will last exactly seven days before turning brown.

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By the time bananas land on the supermarket shelf, their ripening process has
already been carefully engineered through the use of three gases: ethylene, carbon
dioxide, and oxygen. To bring this tropical fruit to distant markets and have it be
edible is kind of amazing, says Randy Ploetz, a professor of plant pathology at the
University of Florida. Its pretty much a science.
It is indeed. The banana is a climacteric fruit, which means that once the ripening
process begins, you cant stop it, explains Ploetz. So the idea is to harvest the
fruits when they are mature but not ripening. When banana bunches are cut off at
harvest, they start to release ethylene, triggering a decrease of pectin and a
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breakdown of starch, which softens and sweetens the fruit. As part of that
senescence process, Ploetz adds, bananas also release carbon dioxide. But high
levels of carbon dioxide and ethylene would cause bananas to ripen too fast or to
spoil before they arrive to consumers. Like many other climacteric fruits, bananas
are sensitive to carbon dioxide if carbon dioxide levels rise to more than 7 percent,
the fruit will soften while still green and wont taste good. So the transportation
companies use a full-blown climate-control system for their capricious passengers.
When bananas are loaded onto a ship, they are cooled off to 54 to 58 degrees
Fahrenheit, depending on the length of the future voyage, and the levels of oxygen
and carbon dioxide are maintained at 5 percent each, according to Carrier
Transicold, a company that designs trucks and ships to transport bananas
worldwide. Plus, humidity levels are kept between 90 and 95 percent, to keep the
fruit moist.

A banana may be healthier than a burger, but how its

brought to you is not all that different.
Before bananas board refrigerated ships bound for foreign ports, plantation workers
place a tracking device that looks like a complex calculator into each crate to record
the climate-control data vital for the fruits health. The device stays with the dainty
travelers throughout the entire journey until they arrive at a store. Since the 1930s,
bananas always had to make a stopover between the ship and the supermarket
namely at a ripening room, a massive warehouse where they are not only allowed to
finally turn yellow, but are gassed with ethylene to quicken the process. Such rooms
are expensive to maintain, and Bhandari and Ho are experimenting with ripening
fruits en route. But gassing fruits inside moving trucks is problematicethylene is
combustible and cant safely be used in large volumes. So the scientists developed
a way to store ethylene in a powder form.
The new invention encapsulates ethylene into modified cyclodextrin, a compound
made up of sugar molecules bound together in a ringessentially a form of starch.
Cyclodextrin has cavities in its crystalline structure which can entrap the ethylene
molecules. Cameron Turner, whose role at the university is to commercialize new
technologies, likens the structure to an egg cartona degradable shell that hosts
molecules rather than eggs. When a bag or box of the powder is opened in a truck
full of produce, the cyclodextrins crystalline structure breaks down because of the
humidity in the airand begins to slowly release ethylene over time.
The effort exerted in planning and transporting bananas can seem, well, bananas.
But be honestyou wouldnt give green or brown-spotted versions a second glance.
You want the perfectly ripe stuff, and this is what Bhandar and Ho christened their
invention. They plan to begin testing RipeStuff in a trial fleet of trucks with interested
customers in 2014. For the time being, most bananas still have to make their final
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stopovers in ripening rooms. However, when RipeStuff is ready to be used
commerciallythe researchers estimate by 2015this already fast fruit will arrive at
your store even faster. Ploetz calls banana transport a science as it is. But with the
decomposing cyclodextrin and the timed release of ethylene, your banana delivery
will become even more of a science project than ever before.
Gloria Dawson is a journalist based in New York City, where she writes about
science, food, and a smattering of other topics. Her writing has appeared in The Wall
Street Journal, National Geographic online, Modern Farmer, and Quartz, among
other publications.
Nautilus is a different kind of science magazine. We deliver big-picture science by
reporting on a single monthly topic from multiple perspectives. Read a new chapter
in the story every Thursday.
2015 Nautilus, All rights reserved
ISSUE 003
http://nautil.us/issue/3/in-transit/the-fast-food-fruit

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Assessment Materials
- Laptops with internet access and TEDEd lesson entitled Food and You,
http://ed.ted.com/on/7Y93o7Ig

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