Teaching Kids Where Food Comes From: A Parent’s Complete Guide to Food Education

Summer is the perfect time to teach your kids where their food comes from. It doesn’t just magically show up at the grocery store after all. Somewhere there’s a farm that grew that food and people who took care of it. There are people who had to harvest that food, wash it, sort it, load it into trucks, and bring it to you.

Learning where food comes from helps all of us, including our children, make more informed choices, can help expand our food palettes, teach us to be more thoughtful about our waste, and generally make us more grateful for what we have.

Understanding where food comes from isn’t just an interesting educational activity – it’s one of the most practical life skills you can give your child. In our modern world, where convenience foods dominate grocery shelves and fast food is always an option, many kids grow up completely disconnected from the food production process. This disconnect can lead to some pretty significant problems down the road.

Better Nutrition and Food Choices

When children understand where food comes from, they develop a deeper appreciation for nutrition and make better food choices throughout their lives. A child who has picked strawberries from a plant and tasted that sun-warmed sweetness is going to choose fresh fruit over processed snacks way more often than a child who only knows strawberries as something that comes in a plastic container.

Critical Thinking Skills Development

Teaching kids where food comes from also builds essential critical thinking skills. They start asking important questions like:

• Why does this apple cost more than that one?
• What does “organic” really mean?
• How did this banana get from a tropical country to our local store?

These questions lead to conversations about economics, geography, environmental science, and social justice, all through the lens of food.

Creating Adventurous Eaters

From a practical standpoint, kids who know where food comes from become more adventurous eaters. When they understand the work that goes into growing different vegetables, they’re more willing to try new things. They develop what food educators call “food empathy.” In other words,  a respect for the effort involved in bringing food to their plate.

Money Management and Planning Skills

Learning where food comes from also teaches kids valuable budgeting and planning skills. They begin to understand:

• Why certain foods cost more than others
• Why some items are seasonal and others aren’t
• How to make smart shopping decisions based on quality and value

These are life skills that will serve them well into adulthood, whether they’re college students on a tight budget or busy parents trying to feed their own families.

Environmental Responsibility

Perhaps most importantly, understanding where food comes from helps children develop a sense of environmental responsibility. They learn about:

• Sustainable farming practices
• The impact of food transportation on the environment
• How their food choices affect the planet

In a world facing climate change and environmental challenges, raising kids who think critically about their food choices is more important than ever.

Building Family Memories and Traditions

Finally, food education creates lasting family memories and traditions. The conversations you have while visiting farms, growing vegetables together, or shopping at farmers’ markets become cherished experiences that your kids will remember and potentially pass on to their children.

The Key to Success: Your Engagement

With each of the activities listed below, remember that it’s your conversation and engagement about what you’re seeing and doing together that makes the biggest impact on your child’s learning.

Consider these approaches:

• Plan trips together and discuss what you expect to see
• Talk about expectations versus realities
• Develop sense memories through tasting samples
• Help them imagine what workers go through to gather all the food that shows up in the grocery store ready for our consumption

Pick one or more activities from our list of five things to do to make sure your children have a better understanding of where food comes from.

1. Visit a farmer’s market.
   

   Going to a farmer’s market allows your family to explore and purchase food that is grown locally. It gives you an opportunity to see the variety of food your community offers and, sometimes, to get food that isn’t sold in your local grocery store.

   The food is usually fresher than what is available from the stores as well, and that quality comes through in taste! It also gives you a chance to meet the farmers who grew the food and talk with them.

   As a family, you can talk about things like the seasonality of foods, your carbon footprint of eating locally, and when purchasing organic makes the most sense.

   If you find something that looks really appetizing, ask the farmer if their farm is open to the public, which leads us to number two on our list of learning where food comes from.

2. Take a farm tour.

   If you’ve gone to a farmer’s market, hopefully, you met some farmers and found at least one who was open to giving you a tour. If you haven’t been to a farmer’s market, Google “local farm” or “farm tours” and where you live.

   If there aren’t that many that turn up, try looking on social media. Some smaller farms will have social media accounts even if they don’t have a website. Get in touch with a few, and then head out for an up close and personal view of what it takes to grow food. You can even try a longer overnight farm stay.

   More than likely, your children will be amazed at the amount of space it takes to grow many crops, how many people are involved in cultivating it, how big and loud equipment like tractors can be, and the impact of the “ugly food” movement.

3. Grow your own food.

   Even if you live in an apartment or small house, you can still grow food with growing towers or container gardens.

   Need some more inspiration for a window box or small planter? Consider vegetables like herbs, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, or microgreens that you can grow indoors. If you have a backyard or small yard, you have more options for what you can plant in a family garden. Community gardens are another great way to get started.

   Kids love to dig in the dirt and will have the opportunity to nurture and watch the plants as they grow. They will quickly learn about pests and just just how easy or difficult it can be to grow various types of food. There’s no better way for kids to learn about food than actually growing it themselves. 

4. Pick your own food.
   

   Find a local farm where you can pick your own food. Search online for “pick your own food/fruit” or “UPick” and where you live. At the very least you’ll likely find a few places where you can pick your own berries or apples.

   Picking your own food will give your kids a chance to see how the food grows (on a bush or tree, for example) and to learn what to look for to pick the best ones. They’ll remember what they learned when they’re picking out the same food at the grocery store later on. That makes for great memories and conversation.

   You will not only get some great, fresh food but also be learning about seasonal food that grows in your area.

5. Learn about seasonal foods in your area.
   

   If you have a chance to pick your own food, you’ll be learning about some of the foods that grow in your area seasonally. If you aren’t able to physically go pick, you can still learn about the foods that grow in your area seasonally.

   Then the next time you head to your local grocery store, make sure to opt for the foods that are in season. They’ll most likely be locally grown and fresher since they didn’t have to travel a long way to get to your store.

Teaching kids where food comes from doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Start small with one of these activities and build from there. The important thing is to keep the conversations going and help your children develop that crucial connection between the food on their plate and the people and processes that brought it there. They’ll be better eaters, better shoppers, and more thoughtful consumers because of it.