A new study has shown that young people need more education about food & farming. At Great British Chefs we were shocked to hear that a third of 16-23 year olds surveyed didn't know where bacon came from, with 3% believing cows produced it and 8% thinking it came from wheat.
Photo by David Griffen from Great British Chefs Bacon Recipe Collection
Food certification body, Linking Environment & Farming (LEAF) also found that less than half of 16 to 23-year-olds knew where butter came from.
The organisation showed a range of pictures of crops and animals – including one of a dairy cow – to 2,000 young adults and asked them to identify which produced butter. A quarter said they could not even guess, while 8% believed butter came from beef cattle and 7% from wheat.
Air dried ham, egg & parmesan by Dominic Chapman
Even with items such as eggs the youngsters were scratching their heads. A third could not identify that eggs come from hens, with ten per cent thinking they come from wheat or maize, while 12% believed that steak came from wheat or maize.
They were also fairly clueless on the the time that crops took to grow. One in 10 young people thought that potatoes, wheat and oats took less than a month to grow.
Photo by David Griffen
Caroline Drummond chief executive of LEAF said young adults were becoming increasingly removed from where their food comes from.
“We often hear reports that our food knowledge may be declining but this new research shows how bad the situation is,” she said. “Three in 10 adults born in the 1990s haven’t visited a farm in more than 10 years, if at all, which is a real shame as our farmers not only play an important role in food production but are passionate about engaging and reconnecting consumers too.”
LEAF is holding Open Farm Sunday on the 17th June 2012, which encourages the general public to engage with farmers and food production. For more information on the survey visit this link
What do you think of the survey results? Do you think that young people should visit farms to get an appreciation of where food comes from? Should the food industry do more to teach them about the importance of farming? Let us know your thoughts over on Great British Chefs Facebook page.
Comments
purplespadge
I'm shocked but I shouldn't be. I think schools should have little gardens where the kids can grow vegetables - I guess if they eat a lot of processed foods they will have no idea where it comes from and also parents should allow they kids to see meat carcasses in a proper butchers shop - I'm from Leeds and we had a fantastic butcher's row in Leeds City Market with carcasses hanging in the window and my mother would send me in as a child and I'd point out which joint/chops whatever it was my mother was buying - that's how kids learn - there is nothing squeamish about it - if they eat meat they ought to know
15 June 2012
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