Foods Lesson: Food Buying, Budget, & Comparison Shopping

This week has been about food labels, comparison shopping, and budgeting for food.

As an introductory question, I asked my students how much they think their parents/families spend on food per week. How much of that amount is spent on processed foods? How much on dining out (fastfood and/or restaurant)? How much on whole foods like fresh produce, meats, and grains?

I started with a Social Studies/Geography tie in. I've seen a trending topic a few years ago about a person who photographed families all over the world and compared their weeks worth of food and prices. I asked the students to estimate how much they thought each family spent on their week's food. The original article I used was from the United Kingdom and the totals were listed in pounds. I obviously had the students figure out how much the pound was compared to the US dollar. Math!

The next day, we talked about how a person can make a menu plan on a budget (inventory what you have already, use store weekly ads, make a menu plan based on the two) and discovered some shopping techniques to help save money. The students then created their own week's worth of dinners, create an itemized grocery list with prices they found online through store circulars, and had to stick to a budget. Math again!

Today, they are comparing store brands with national brands. I purchased 4 types of cereals that had a similar store brand. The students will be looking at the nutrition facts to compare the cereals. They will also be doing a taste test (taste, texture, smell, visual appeal) to see if they can determine which is which. Then, they will decide which to buy.

To prep the cereals, I took gallon size zip-top bags and re-bagged each cereal. I labeled each zip-top bag and created a key for myself. I didn't want the students to be able to tell what cereal was which until a later time.

Cereal Comparison Lab Sheet

Key Notes:

• Students need to be able to use descriptive adjectives (English!) for taste, smell, and visual descriptions.
• It's really important for the students to be able to visually compare each cereal before they consume it. I make sure to tell them to not eat until all cereals have been passed out to all students and then I tell them when they can eat.
• Prices will vary by store. You may want to leave that blank. I was kind and put them in for my students
• We use a lot of technology. I took pictures of the nutrition facts for the similar cereals for comparison. Those could also be photocopied and handed out to students.