Core: Science: Food Safety

As a homeschooling parent, you have the opportunity to tailor your child's education towards those areas most needed. For example, food safety. Understandably, some homeschooling parents are science averse. This may be due to a religious persuasion that requires a literal reading of Genesis or some strange belief that Jenny McCarthy is a better expert on vaccinations than a pediatrician.

Despite this, I think we can find common ground in valuing food safety. Bacteria are real. They can proliferate and get people sick. I might not be able to explain evolution to one who doesn't want to see it. I might not be able to convince people of the value of vaccinations. However, we can agree that bacteria exist and are sometimes associated with sickness. In the case of food poisoning, we should pretty much find a level of understanding.

To that end, the Food and Drug Administration has produced a perhaps cheesy video that is most likely appropriate for middle school children. The cheese factor helps dumb it down to a level that a kid might understand, which is nice. In the video, "Dr. X and the Quest for Food Safety" we find a nice exploration of concepts necessary to impress upon a young mind the concept of safe food handling. This, unlike other science lessons regarding the rate at which a body falls under the influence of gravity (although this a worthy subject), pertains to a subject which can immediately impact a child's life.

(Video: 45 minutes science credit)

For starters, an interest in safe food  handling does make one leery of eating at restaurants where one cannot watch the food preparation procedures. This is generally a healthy concern. Cooking your own food while paying attention to food safety rules is likely to keep a person healthy.  Generally being untrusting of restaurants will encourage one to prepare their own food. Preparing one's own food generally is more financially affordable and enables one to watch more closely their diet.

At the same time, the video manages to impart some nice scientifically respectable information regarding disease transmission with respect to unsafe food handling procedures. This is solid science credit with a practical application to a child's life. Bonus points.

The FDA has even gone farther than this one video. They have even put together an 100 page pdf booklet entitled, "Science and Our Food Supply." Thus, after watching the 45 minute video, you have a nice detailed PDF booklet for further reading. Some children digest this faster than others, but all the time spent going over this booklet is good, solid, core science credit.

For more scientifically advanced middle schoolers, you have a 110 page pdf booklet similarly titled, "Science and Our Food Supply."

The takeaway from this exploration of the FDA's website should be that some of the government agencies exist to safeguard citizens like you and me. These agencies might sometimes be opposed by certain vested interests more concerned with their profits than your health. However, if one is willing to follow the science instead of succumb to the song and dance of vested capital interests, these agencies can do an excellent work to protect us.