Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term - Senior Secondary 3

Term – 1^st Term

Week: 6

Class: Senior Secondary School 3

Age: 17 years

Duration: 40 minutes of 2 periods each

Date:       

Subject:      Food and Nutrition

Topic:-       Food habits, cultural food habits and taboos II

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: At the end of the lesson, pupils should be able to:            

1. Identify food fallacies of their localities;
2. Advocate discouraging food fallacies in their localities.

INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES: Identification, explanation, questions and answers, demonstration, videos from source

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS: Videos, loud speaker, textbook, pictures

INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES

PERIOD 1-2

NOTE.

FOOD HABITS, CULTURAL FOOD HABITS AND TABOOS

Food habits are also influenced by fads and fallacies about food. Thus there is a need for nutrition education at all levels, especially at the local levels where there are so many superstitious beliefs about food that should be corrected.

FOOD TABOOS, FADS AND FALLACIES

Food Taboos
There are different types of food that are not consumed by different people in different parts of the world, Nigeria inclusive. Usually such foods are forbidden for one reason or the other; some may be due to religious, cultural or other reasons. Such foods therefore become taboo i.e. prohibited for the particular people concerned.

For example, in some parts of Nigeria, it is a taboo for pregnant women to eat snails. Such people believe that the baby when delivered will be salivating profusely should the mother eat snails during pregnancy. Some even go as far as saying such children tend to be sluggish in behaviour just like snails. Some others prohibit the consumption of reptiles because they believe that the baby will be crawling and will not walk on time. Most of the taboos have no scientific basis and they tend to deprive the individual concerned from eating a balanced diet. A lot of food taboos exist in different parts of Nigeria.

Food Fads
A ‘Fad’ is a phenomenon, style or custom that becomes popular which many people are interested in for a short time. Fads may be popular but do not last for long.

Food fads can therefore be defined as certain practices about food, engaged in by people for a relatively short period. Foods are like fashions which come and go. It should be noted that in as much as food fad is in practice doesn’t make it nutritionally acceptable or sound. Let’s take for instance, fried rice which was very popular some time ago and if you were having a party or ceremony and did not prepare fried rice, people would look down on such an occasion. Thus food fads are practices that tend to boost the social status within the society. People tend to look out for a particular food in an occasion before they can rate such occasion. This was the case of fried rice as stated earlier.

Food Fallacies
Food fallacies are wrong opinions about the role of certain nutrients in the body. The wide-spread fallacies about the role of food nutrients in the body within the country make nutrition education very important. Fallacies about food are contributive to the high rate of malnutrition, especially among children.

Some Common Food Fallacies
1. Fallacy: Consumption of meat by children gives rise to the development of worms in them.
Fact: Children need meat because it is a good source of first-class protein which they need for proper growth. They should therefore be encouraged to consume meat.

2. Fallacy: Vegetable oils are less fattening than solid fats.

Fact: Oils and solid fats are equally high in calories, i.e each gram of fat from either source furnishes 9Kcal.

3. Fallacy: A diet low in calcium leads to nervousness.
Fact: When the diet is inadequate, calcium is readily withdrawn from the bones to supply the minute amounts needed to regulate the response of the nerves. There is no evidence that a low-calcium diet intake leads to nervousness.

4. Fallacy: Vitamins from food sources are better than those from synthetic Sources.
Fact: Each vitamin has a definite chemical composition. Thus one
milligram of vitamin from a food Source or from a concentrate exactly eliminates the need to spend additional money for vitamin tablets. There are, of course, legitimate uses for vitamin tablets for different disease conditions. You ask yourself, if this fallacy is true, why do people still patronize malaria drugs, why don’t they stick to chewing leaves of plants?

5. Fallacy: Athletes need more protein than non-athletes.

Fact: The protein requirement of the adult depends on the body size and not on the amount of exercise.

EVALUATION:    1. Identify three common food fallacy in our locality

2. Discuss three ways we can advocate for the discouragement of the food fallacies

CLASSWORK: As in evaluation

CONCLUSION: The teacher commends the students positively