the BOX of nice things

Thursday, September 16, 2010, 11:54 PM

web source review 2 & 3

Review 2 - Smart-Mouth.org

This websites uses colourful graphics and is not text-laden, thus I think might engage the students taking Food Studies.

Under the section "choose ur chew", students can select their favourite snack and the counter will show the sum of saturated fat and calories.

This can be used when teaching the topic on balanced diet whereby this can show the students that food should be eaten in moderation. Through this interactive snack counter, there could be discussion on the function of nutrients (mainly fat) in the body and hidden fat in food. When the calories or saturated fat content is too high due to addition of certain food, there will be suggestion given to improve the diet, as well as related readings. This will let the students know the relationship of the diet and their body, enhancing the importance of a balanced diet.

Then there's short video clips that covers health-related issues related to intake of saturated fat, which can be used engage the students.

Other than the above mentioned, there's some food facts and riddles that students can explore on their free time. Overall, I find that this website cover mostly on topics that surrounds saturated fat. It is only useful to a small extend due to the limited content that relates with the Food Studies Syllabus. However, can still be useful if it is used as a tool to engage the students at the start of introducing the topics on "fats and oils" or "balancing diet".

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review 3 - Steamy Kitchen

Apart from just providing recipes, this website is also useful when used to introduce the students to ways they can present their food in attractive and appropriate manners.

As product and presentation and evaluation made up 10% weightage of coursework A, it is important to have proper presentation of their dishes during execution and include nicely taken photos in the evaluation section. Thus, when introducing students to presentation of food, this website can be used. It can provide students with ideas for their dishes presentation. By visiting the site, they can pick up ideas such as; to make food attractive, they can either work on the plating and/or decorating the food itself.

This website also includes many recipes that involved different methods of cooking. Therefore, while discussing with the students on presentation of food, I can also bring in other components under the topic of food management.

Here's how a recipe post in the website looks:
Super Simple Pate a Choux – Poofy Puffy Pastry! from the Bread category

So bascially, these photos provides visual aid to engage the Food Studies students as many of them would prefer to see photos than wordy descriptions. This example is one of the typical "high skill" dishes that can be executed but many are unable to get the desired outcome when executing the recipe. So, hopefully with photos to guide the step by step making, more students can master the skill of choux pastry.

A negative point is that not all the dishes have detailed recipes/ step by step how-to-do with photos as they merely include links to other sites. Nonetheless, it is one of the many recipe sites that can be used when students are introduced to the concept of food presentation as a picture speaks a thousand words.

Labels: DCX 130 Teaching Food and Nutrition