Do you know where the food you eat every day is grown and produced?

(a) Brainstorm

Take a moment to think about the last meal you ate – this morning's breakfast or last night's dinner. Try to make a list of all the products and/or ingredients that were used to cook or prepare it. 

(b) Guess

Where do you think were these ingredients grown and produced? How far did they travel before arriving to the store or market where you bought them? How were they transported? If you do not know this exactly, take a good guess. Indicate the locations on a map (you can use the National Geographic MapMaker, see below).

(c) Look it up

Check the products in your refrigerator at home: Are they adequately labelled? If not, visit the closest supermarket or grocery store and check where these products typically come from.

(d) Document your findings

Document your results to all three questions in the FORUM: Mapping our food and discuss them critically with your group members. You should also upload a copy of your map and, if possible, annotated pictures of the food labels you investigated at home or in the supermarket ( use your smartphone).

Materials and resources:

If you need some inspiration for this task, take a look at "The Food Labeling Guide" of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Text U.S. Food and Drug Administration: A Food Labeling Guide – Which information needs to be provided on a packaging

Interactive National Geographic Education: MapMaker Interactive Web-tool may not open in Google Chrome

Optional Food and You

Explore the issues connected to sustainable food and watch the "Food and You" video. It critically discusses the implications of our everyday consumer choices on our food system.

Optional Dumpster Diving 

Have you ever heard of “Containern”? Even though the word sounds English, it is the German term for Dumpster Diving. This is an activity to save still edible food that was being thrown away by supermarkets. To learn more about Dumpster Diving in the USA, have a look at the TED Talk of food activist Rob Greenfield and answer the questions below:

• Why is food thrown away and not donated? (10:38)

• What can grocery stores do? (12:54)

• What can you do? (15:34)

Text Bundesverfassungsgericht: Containern bleibt strafbar (August 18, 2020)

Text Wie Frankreich gegen den achtlosen Umgang mit Essen kämpft (February 17, 2019)

Text Video Warum anderswo weniger in der Tonne landet (June 05, 2019)