The Spaghetti Challenge

Today we learnt about food labels and how important it is to read them when we are shopping for food. Our overall learning goal for the lesson was to use information on food packaging to make healthy food choices.

First, we learnt about the "language of labelling" and how some phrases like "99% Fat Free!" can be misleading. However, with a bit of help we found the true meanings of some common words you can find plastered all over the supermarket. 

• Light/Lite = has less fat or fewer kilojoules
• Reduced Fat = has less fat than the regular product
• Cholesterol free = products that don't contain any animal fat
• No sugar added = No extra sugar added but the product might have some sugar in it.
• Good source of energy = High in kilojoules (or calories)
• Organic = Grown without the use of chemical sprays.

The Challenge!

After learning about the labels, Mr Moemai showed us 3 different types of spaghetti (hiding the brand names) and asked us to find the "healthiest" option. We looked at the nutritional information for each brand and ranked each based on their fat, sugar and sodium (salt) content. Mr Moemai then added up all of our rankings and.....

Here are the results!!

Ranked 1st by Room 21 as the healthiest option is...

(A.K.A. TIN 3)

The well known brand had the lowest fat and sodium content with sugar being the 2nd lowest of the three cans. This means that healthy food can be yum!!

Fat total: 0.6g

Sugars: 10.5g

Sodium: 675mg

In 2nd place was... 

 (A.K.A.TIN 1)

Fat total: <1g

Sugars: 6.9g

Sodium: 977mg

And last or 3rd was the brand most students thought would be the healthiest option which actually had the highest sugar and salt content, 

(A.K.A TIN 2) 

Fat total: 1.0g

Sugar: 10.7g

Sodium: 1035mg

Don't forget to check the home learning tab over the next week to complete the follow up task.