I came across this article from UK which I must definitely share with you guys as I'm very interested to know your thoughts on this. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here:
"Almost half of children who took part in a food poll failed to identify how 10 types of fruit were grown, with some believing bananas were made in factories. One in 10 of the youngsters, who were aged six to 10, had no idea that apples grow on trees. And more than one in four thought strawberries grew underground, while one in 10 thought they came from trees and some believed they just popped up in the fridge.
According to the poll of 1,000 kids by muffin firm The Fabulous Bakers, one in 10 children also thought chocolate bars grew on trees and a handful reckoned honey came from cows. Watermelons left the youngsters completely baffled with guesses ranging from underground, on trees and in bushes. Mangoes fared better with more than half knowing they grew on trees.
But the survey found some adults were just as bad. More than a quarter of grown-ups had no idea that bananas grew on a massive plant and one in ten thought grapes were picked from trees. Victoria Willis of The Fabulous Bakers said: “It is really important that people know exactly where the food we put into our bodies comes from."
As a parent to 3 kiddos with age range of 2 to 6.5 years old, I played YouTube videos and download documentaries onto our player to show our kiddos on how food are made, for example, where the orange juice came from, durians that we eat in Malaysia, and so on.
Sometimes when we drove past places during a family outing, I would also point out to our kiddos whenever I see any interesting fruits growing in the area (tomatoes, bananas, papayas, durians, petai, durians and more) For example, there was this one time during our outing to a nearby park, I saw a banana tree and immediately beckoned our kiddos to come over and investigate the tree.
I remembered one time during our trip to Phuket few months back, we stopped by at the roadside to eat some durians and we saw a buffalo in the paddy field nearby. What an awesome teaching and learning moment, to explain to our kiddos why the buffalo is there, what its purpose was and how it can help etc.
I also have some books on my iPad on lots of educational materials such as how chocolate was made, about rice, corn and many many more.
I think it is important that our kiddos know where their food came from. In this modern days where everything is served fast and immediate, it is all the more important that we as parents should ensure that our kiddos are educated and exposed to as much information as possible.
If you feel you are not knowledgable enough, then Google or YouTube for sites and videos and show to your kiddos, watch together and use it as a learning opportunities and bonding time together as well.
How about you? What do you think?
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