RIGHT NOW! The right to food!

with proposals for learning activities

Amazingly deliciousadventures!

Interactive stories

The funniest stories on food

Editor:Ayuda en Acción

Authors:The Yetooponese association team: Zulema Cadenas GagoMaría Pérez FernándezElena Fernández SuárezJosé María Pérez Fernández

Illustrations and layout:Hoboland

Translated by: Students of the module 35620 General Translation II at the Universitat de València.Supervised by: Sergio MaruendaIsabel TelloGabriela Harsulescu

Index

The confusion of Basil the TomatoTopic: Healthy food ....................................................................................................... p. 4 Didactic Unit ...................................................................................................... p. 11 Worksheet........................................................................................................... p. 15

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“Today can be the great day!” has thought Basil the Tomato every day for a week as he wakes up on the cultivated field with the early morning dew.

Basil lives in a very beautiful vegetable garden, surrounded by other tomatoes and many other vegetables and fruits. He has spent many days sunbathing, drinking water and having a great time with the other residents of the lot.

The onions never stop telling jokes. The cour-gettes, as we all know, love parties and hullabaloo. Well, what can we say about the aubergines with their sense of rhythm? And the beans, who can’t stop talking and telling stories about everybody else.

There are days on the lot when with all the commotion and joy it seems that they’re going to wake up the neighbours. Especially, when after a downpour, the sun appears again or at night, when it’s the watering turn or in the morning when everybody wakes up at sunrise and hears the cock-a-doodle-doo of the cock.

There are also high jinks when after the rain, the snails come out and they tickle the fruits and vegetables who can’t take it.

Recently Basil has been nervous. He realizes that he’s got big, red on the outside and juicy on the inside. He’s a full-grown tomato. It’s time to decide his destiny. “Oh! I am so lucky to be a

Topic: Healthy food

The confusion of Basil the Tomato

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tomato and do such beautiful things!” thinks Basil day in and day out.

- What will I become? I could become ketchup, or salad, or fried tomato, or lasagne tomato, or pizza! Hmm... no, maybe bread and tomato... Oh, what a mess! What shall I become?

With so many doubts Basil finally decides to tell the rest of the vegetables his mess:

- What a mess! What a mess! – shouts Basil.

- What’s going on? – ask the vegetables.

- I’m very confused. I don’t know what I want to become.

Immediately the aubergines want to give their opinion.

-You must become ketchup. Such a brilliant and glamorous tomato like you deserves to stand out, to be admired on the shelves of large supermar-kets, well-known on the tables of the greatest hamburger restaurants. Made up, clothed, dressed and optimized! Moreover, the people who eat you will lick their fingers.

- What a mess! What a mess! – exclaims Basil.

- We know what you have to become –the lettuces answer readily. – Such a pleasant and friendly tomato like you must become a salad. You are going to meet a lot of good and friendly people (lettuces, onions, radishes, olives and other tomatoes). You will enjoy an easy and

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placid life. And, most importantly, people who eat you will fill up on vitamins and health.

-What a mess! What a mess!- sighs Basil the tomato.

- ¡No, no and no! – say the courgettes. – Such a determined tomato like you can reach any goal. All you have to do is to become concentrated tomato. You will live incomparable experiences while passing through many machines that will mix you up, improve you and squash you until only the best of you remains. If you strive so much, you could become the tomato of a pre-cooked lasagne or, better, of a deep-frozen pizza! Moreover, people who eat you will be full quickly and thus they will have more time to go to work.

- What a mess! What a mess! – cries Basil the tomato.

- Ketchup, salad, pizza, lasagne, bread with tomato! – exclaim the beans who are getting all the garden worked up.

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Which advice would you take if you were Basil the tomato?That of the aubergines, the lettuces or the courgettes?

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The aubergines’ advice:

Ketchup

After much thought, Basil decided that he deserved a life full of fame and luxuries, so when they came to pick him he got into the basket that went to the ketchup factory. Basil’s excitement and joy lasted a long time, whilst chemical products were added to make him more flavoursome, give him more colour, more texture and make him live longer, whilst they massaged, squeezed and moulded him. It is true that some of the additives that they poured on him smelled pretty bad and that so much massaging made him a little nervous but when this process finished, he was incredibly bright and glamorous in his plastic red boat. It is true that sometimes he had doubts because he thought: “Is it because I was a disaster? My taste, my colour, my consist-

ency were bad? Why have they changed me so much?” But he did not allow himself

to be discouraged by his doubts so he lifted his head high to allow the families to fill their hamburgers with ketchup.

However, after being in the hamburger shop, Basil felt exhausted, old and dirty… He was missing his former shape, and he also started to notice how unhealthy it was for the

families to eat this ketchup filled with colorants, preservatives and

flavour enhancers. “What a shame! In reality, no one is benefiting from

all my vitamins, and under this weird taste, it is not truly me. Have I made the

wrong decision?”

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Basil decided that what would suit him best was a calm and simple life, and when it came to being chosen, he was put into the basket that went to the village market. After half an hour in a lorry, they put him into baskets together with other vegetables from the same vegetable patch and other nearby gardens. There was a very chatty atmosphere: all the vegetables were making jokes and putting on their best faces when families looked interested in buying them. Mid morning, a man chose Basil, together with a lot of onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and put them in the basket of his bicycle. The journey was amazing. Basil had never enjoyed himself so much, admiring the scenery and the clattering of the bicycle!

Upon arriving home, the man cut the vegetables into pieces and dressed them with the most delicious oil and a generous helping of salt. When

the rest of the family arrived and sat down to eat on the porch outside the house,

Basil could not have felt more proud of the decision that he had

made. The dinner guests licked their fingers and couldn’t

stop saying how delicious everything tasted. After-

wards, when they started playing, Basil knew that he had truly made the most of all the vitamins and nutrients that he had absorbed from the sun and the rain.

The lettuces’ advice:

Salad

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The courgette’s advice:

Tomato paste

After a lot of thought, Basil decided that he was going to do his absolute best, and when it came to being chosen, he was put into the box that was going to the tomato paste factory.

The journey was quite uncomfortable, every-body was cramped and the drivers were in a hurry and weren’t very pleasant. When they arrived at the factory, they were left for hours in a corner. When they were gathered up again it felt like a theme park: Basil went through more than twenty chutes and casters, where each time he was squeezed more and more, so much so that he didn’t even know where he was anymore…

It reached a point when it was no longer fun, but Basil cheered himself

up thinking how wonderful everything was going to be later on. Once he had been well compressed, they added a lot of unusual ingredients, many of which were chemical products to make his flavour, smell and colour stronger, and make sure he lasted a long time before going bad. After a while, Basil was falling asleep from boredom. He woke up freezing cold on a deep-frozen pizza, surrounded by other ingredients that, like him, were exhausted after everything

they had been through. Basil didn’t have a trace of happiness left in

him… and it’s better not to even speak about the vitamins!

“I hope that whoever eats me can stay happy, because truthfully, I don’t believe that they will get anything good from me. What a shame! Have I made the wrong decision?” thought Basil.

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Didactic UnitHealthy Food

Pre-SchoolCreating our character

Materials: Paper and coloured pencils.

Estimated time: 50 minutes

Read the story The confusion of Basil the Tomato and ask the key questions. Tell the pupils that now that they are familiar with Basil the tomato, they are going to draw some of his friends.

Distribute paper and materials to the pupils for drawing and colouring. Ask the boys and girls to think about their favourite food and draw a character (like Basil).

Once they have finished, present every new character in a circle and find out more about their story. Why do they like this food? What other types of food do they like to eat? When do they normally eat this food? Why do they think that this food decided to become that food?

Once the new characters have been introduced, present a series of statements to identify which of the foods are healthier. Read the statements one by one. Each time that a state-ment is true for their character, pupils will lift up their picture so that everyone can see and get a star.

Key questions to ask the group after reading the tale

Objectives

Activities

Which of the three options made Basil the happiest? Why? What would you have done if you were Basil?

What are the differences between the products that Basil was transformed in? From the three foods, which is the healthiest? Why?

• To learn about the importance of healthy eating for wellbeing and health.• To learn about a balanced diet and its ingredients.• To acknowledge the nutritional benefits from natural products compared with processed

food.

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Statements:

• Your food comes from the ground or from the sea.

• Your food is usually found outside the refrigerator at the supermarket.

• Your food does not come packaged (it does not come inside any container or plastic).

To finish off, arrange all of the foods/characters on the classroom floor, placing the ones that have the most stars first, followed by the ones that have the least.

Explain that the foods that have the most stars are the healthiest, and they make us feel better because:

• Foods that do not undergo any transformation before being eaten are often better for your health.

• Packaged foods usually have chemical products that are not healthy and are often harmful for our health.

• The same food can be eaten in many ways. We must always try to eat it in the healthiest and most natural way.

Years 1-3 Primary EducationSuper food and unhealthy food on the food pyramid

Materials: Digestive system worksheet, sticky tape, cut-outs or drawings of natural and processed food.Estimated time: 50 minutes

After reading The confusion of Basil the Tomato, ask the group some key questions. Once answered, ask more questions to introduce the activity. Why are these foods so important for us? What does food become when it enters our body?

Get feedback and explain the process of food arriving in the body with the help of the cut-outs on the digestive system.

Summarise and complete some of their ideas:

Eating is an essential function for our lives. When we eat food, for example Basil the Tomato, the diges-tive system transforms it into the nutrients needed to help our body to grow and form, and also gives us the energy needed to move, run, jump, read, etc. Each type of food generates different nutrients for our body. This is why it is important to have a varied diet.

We explain that there are foods like Basil the Tomato that have many nutrients and provide lots of energy. They are super-foods that make us healthy and strong like superheroes. In addition, there are other foods such as ketchup or pizza that have hardly any nutrients and give little energy. They are unhealthy foods that make us tired and unhealthy.

Draw two circles on the board, in one of them write ‘super-foods’ and in the other ‘unhealthy-foods.’ Then divide the class into two separate groups and hand each group several magazine clippings/drawings of different types of food both natural and processed. The groups will then decide which food goes in which circle. After deciding together, put the foods into the circle in which they belong.

Most of the processed-foods contain chemicals, preservatives and stabilizers etc.

We then ask the group if they have heard of the ‘Food Pyramid’. Get their feedback and complement it.

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• The ‘Food Pyramid’ is a graph designed to indicate which foods are needed in a healthy diet, and how much of them we should be consuming in order to have a healthy and balanced diet.

• This pyramid includes all the food groups, and without trying to restrict any of them, it only indicates how much of each of the food groups to eat, in order to maintain good health.

Now, draw a ‘food pyramid’ elsewhere on the board, and ask the class to fill in this part with the clippings that they had already placed into the ‘super-foods’ or ‘unhealthy foods’ circles, and once they have done that and filled up the pyramid, ask them if they know how much and how often they should eat each food group each day. Collect their responses and write down where each food should go. Finally, go over the pyramid as a group to review the results.

Years 4-6 Primary Education: We create our own restaurant

Materials: cardboard or blackboard with the drawing of the food pyramid, cardboards or sheets of paper, coloured pencils and pens.

Estimated time: 50 minutes

After reading the story The confusion of Basil the Tomato ask some of the key questions and then present the food pyramid with its different sections, by drawing it on the blackboard or on a cardboard.

Ask if they know how many times it is advisable to eat foods from each of the sections of the pyramid on a daily basis. Complement their feedback and draw it in the pyramid. Also ask where they think “Basil the Tomato” should go according to the chosen ending.

Get their feedback and complete their answers:

• The ketchup and frozen pizza belongs to processed food. These foods usually contain higher levels of sugars, fats and preservatives. These foods are extremely high in calories and have reduced nutritional value. These are on top of the food pyramid and should be eaten moderately.

• The tomato belongs to the group of fruits and vegetables. They are an important source of water, vitamins, minerals and fibre and, in the case of fruits, also sugars. It is recom-mended to consume an average of 5 servings per day (of which 2-3 servings should be uncooked to better preserve their vitamins and minerals): 3 or more servings of fruit, and 2 or more servings of vegetables or salad daily.

Divide the class into groups. Explain that it’s time to create their own restaurant. Each group chooses a name for their restaurant and has to create a menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner to provide the recommended foods in the food pyramid in one day.

Next they present each menu to the other groups and there is a vote to win the following prizes:

• The healthiest menu

• The most natural menu

• The most original menu

Each group will have the chance to cast one vote, so they must decide by consensus.

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A day of sport and health activities will be organized in the schoolyard. Each class will function as a team and pass together different cooperative tasks. The name of each team will corre-spond to a healthy food. At the end of the activity, seasonal fruit will be distributed among the students to regain strength.

• Fundación Alimentación Saludable (Healthy Diet Foundation): www.alimentacionsaludable.es

• PERSEO Programme of Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs: www.perseo.aesan.msssi.gob.es

• NAOS strategy of Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs: www.naos.aesan.msssi.gob.es

• Video about healthy diet: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7L3caghiZ0

• Information about food pyramid: www.escuelapedia.com/piramide—alimenticia/

Extra activity

Find out more

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WorksheetDigestive system

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