I find this truly frightening.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1 min. 44 sec. video of 6 year old kids in a classroom who do not know what food is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg&feature=player_embedded

[ensho]

1. agree - I saw it too - makes one speechless

nt

[CountAllVotes]

2. it is frightening

and so is the amount of growing illiteracy in this country. Does anyone know how to read or write these days?

Remember: I before E except after C!

We are growing ourselves an entire nation of :dunce: :dunce: :dunce:

:kick:

[Scuba]

4. I before E? That's just weird.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. How much does it weigh?

Who is its neighbor?
:)

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. They're 6

I found a lot of their answers understandable. But I've spent 30 years teaching elementary school. My first reaction was, that like many videos of this type, it is easy to eliminate the parts that are NOT attention grabbing. So it could be a few kids gave the right answers but we will never know. Kind of like those man in the street interviews where we only get to see the stupid answers.

But calling an eggplant a turnip is understandable as they are the same shape. Potato and tomato are very similar sounding words. It's also easy to see how a 6 year old would confuse broccoli and cauliflower.

Kids this age are still developing language skills and their responses were exactly what I expected.

But I can understand how people not as familiar with child development would find this video surprising.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Yep. It's like watching them write and assuming every one of them has dyslexia. Well, no, they

may just not have come to the realization that the orientation of the letters matters as much as the shapes do yet. :hi:

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. I wish I had a dime for every hysterical parent I have come across

who is convinced something is wrong with their 5 or 6 year old because he/she makes letters backwards.

It's called child development. Very interesting to observe.

[EFerrari]

11. One of my boys thought his favorite meal was Roast Beast

and Smashed Potatoes. lol

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. My youngest still asks me to fix pasgetti

He's 26. LOL

[madmom]

16. Funny, but interesting anecdotal story. When my son was in 1st grade I got called into school for

a conference because of some "disturbing" behavior. He was asked to draw a certain picture of something (I don't remember what) his whole picture was done with black crayon. The teacher and principle both found it disturbing and wanted to know if he had anything troubling him at home. I was confused so I asked him what's with the all black picture, his response...that's the only crayon I could find. Moral....not all things are as dire as people want to make them out to be.

[Spirochete]

23. Same exact thing happened to me in first grade

The teachers and my parents thought I was disturbed because I colored in black crayons, when in truth, I always dawdled so much getting to the crayon bins, black was the only color left. Interesting that this happend to someone else, as well...

[RC]

6. Apparenty types of food and where their food comes from is not on the Test

the schools use to acquire their finances.

[Berry Cool]

7. I question this.

How many kids DO know what an eggplant is? Not every family regularly cooks and eats eggplant, even if they regularly cook fruits and vegetables. One of them did recognize it as being shaped like a pear, which implies a familiarity with fresh pears.

And when he pronounces "tomatoes" the British way--"to-MAH-toes"--no wonder they don't get what he's talking about. The one kid obviously knew what he meant when he said "Tomato ketchup--I know what THAT is." True, it's sad if he doesn't know what fresh tomatoes are, but Oliver may have confused the issue by calling them "to-MAH-toes." The kids, from their accents, appear to be Americans. Also, the tomatoes he shows them are so red that maybe that's why they don't recognize them--they're too used to pink supermarket tomatoes!

As for not recognizing cauliflower, again, some kids may never have seen it, but it doesn't mean they've never eaten fresh veggies (they're guessing, after all, that it's broccoli). Same with the leafy stuff (whatever it was!) that they mistook for "celery." As for the potatoes, the video is cut off before we can really see whether someone identified them correctly. The fact that they seemed stumped at first doesn't prove they didn't know.

I would expect kids to recognize the following in fresh form:

Tomatoes (in some form or other)
Potatoes (in some form)
Corn
Peas
Green beans
Broccoli
Carrots
Celery
Lettuce (in some form)
Onions (in some form)
Peppers (in some form)
Apples
Oranges
Pears
Lemons
Limes

I would not necessarily expect them to recognize eggplant, cauliflower or kale, amongst other things, unless they were fed these items regularly. And while it may be a pity that they aren't, it's not a shocking horrible tragedy. The important thing is that they DO eat fresh fruits and veggies of some kind.

I don't think this video really did enough to prove the kids had "never seen food before."

[KittyWampus]

10. IMO, the kids who are answering ALMOST get it right. Potato does sound like Tomato

Cauliflower does look like Broccoli. Eggplants do look like Pears. Beets with greens attached do look like Celery.

I absolutely agree too many families are relying on fast food, frozen food and processed food too heavily. And that not enough parents engage their kids in the supermarket and kitchen.

That said, I do think the kids have a general idea but are still kind of young to be pulling exact names out of a hat (their memories).

[AnArmyVeteran]

12. I always tagged along with my dad when he went grocery shopping...

He would always show me how to choose the best vegetables, fruit, meat, etc... He taught me how to be able to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe by smelling it and how to buy the best meats, explaining how marbling is so important to taste. He was a chef and so I had the perfect teacher. But I also had an insatiable thirst to learn. I wasn't like today's kids, who look more like balls in a pinball machine going all over the place and clueless about things in grocery stores, except candy and junk food. I've never witnessed a parent explaining to their child how to select fruit, veggies or meat like my dad did. Maybe most parents are as clueless as their children.

[alphafemale]

24. I involved my kids in many everyday activities, like grocery shopping.

Young kids are absolutely astounding in the amount of info they can take in. And I'm almost certain that there were some kids in that class that knew the names of all those veggies and maybe even one or two that could give at least a basic description of how to cook/serve them.

Of course those kids didn't make the cut for this video.

Just like a sober person at a road block isn't going to be seen on "Cops" any time soon.

Still, they're six.

Unless someone is actively engaging them in conversations about produce at the grocery store or at the counter while preparing meals there's not any real expectation that suburban or urban kids would know what produce looks like before it becomes food. They also probably don't yet know that hamburger equals cow and bacon was once a pig.

I engaged my kids in conversations at the grocery store and learning about "boring stuff" like produce rather than shoving a video game in their hands to shut them up.

[AnArmyVeteran]

25. Good for you Alphafemale. And you're right about the video too. Your kids are lucky...

[alphafemale]

28. They're actually 23 and a few days from 20 now.

That makes me feel really old to say that. :rofl:

[AnArmyVeteran]

30. I bet they are more independent than most kids having been taught so much. Good job!

[alphafemale]

32. I'm appalled at the videos now available in cars...embedded in the headrests.

20 years from now is anyone going to know how to play "punch buggy" or "I spy."

Or will they all be staring slack-jawed at a video screen.

[AnArmyVeteran]

33. We used to play that the Beaver Cleaver game counting VW beetles. The red ones counted the highest.

It's a shame children are not learning how to entertain themselves any more. It's going to lead to a huge creativity drain in the future.

[CrispyQ]

14. At six, I would not have known some of those veggies either.

I helped my grandfather with the garden, but we didn't grow cauliflower, eggplant or beets & I sure as hell wouldn't have eaten any of them!

Dixiegrrrrl, thanks for giving the length of the video & a brief description of it. :thumbsup:

[FedUpWithIt All]

20. I was thinking about this too. I don't think many of the veggie consuming 6 yr olds

i know would know the names either. The veggies on a plate do not often resemble the raw product. It doesn't mean that the kids are not eating vegetables, it means they are not shopping for, or preparing or eating them in raw form.

I suspect the kids are more aware of the names of a variety of fruits.

[Z_I_Peevey]

31. At six, I helped my grandparents hoe weeds in their

vegetable gardens, and I'm positive I couldn't have identified broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant or beets even as I tended them! I think I might have had a pretty good bead on the corn vs. potatoes question, but most of it I remember as green stuff vs. dirt.

[NoPasaran]

15. I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it!

[annabanana]

18. LOL!

(are we dating ourselves?)

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Bit of background why I shared this video.

The link was sent to me by my 40 y/o son, who had same feeling as I did about it.
He and his slightly older brother were raised with Sesame Street ( which did show what food items were) and real non-boxed food from the the garden, and/or store, so by 6 they knew what the produce shown in the video was.
Both sons cook for themselves, with real vegies and rice and etc.

To me, this was/is "normal".

My concerns are what happens when real food is not longer available to most people?
What happens when franken foods are the only option?
What happens when the 6,000 mile salad is no longer possible?
What happens when opening a a package and putting it in the microwave is not an option?

Today we are seeing what happens when buying fish and shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico is not possible.

But hell, I am old and used to more self reliance.
So maybe it is just me that is concerned about the kids of today.

[CrispyQ]

21. Your concerns are valid.

I watched "Super Size Me" & was stunned at what passes for the hot lunch program at schools these days! Pizza, chicken nuggets, what I would consider junk, fast food. Our cafeterias were manned with German woman who cooked meals like roast beef with mashed potatoes & a veggie. I think Jamie's show is great.

At a comedy show, a comedienne quipped, "When I tell the kids it's time for dinner, they grab their coats & run to the car."

[marions ghost]

19. I went on to watch the video

about how he changes the meals in one school in Huntington WV. The kids actually seem to be able to change from eating junk food to the more healthy food without too much protest.

It's not what kids prefer. It's what they are fed.

[Iggo]

22. Is that going to be on the test?

[Brickbat]

26. I don't. I see a lot of kids talking the way kids do and making educated guesses the way kids do.

[Initech]

27. Would you like another extra big-ass taco now with more molecules?

[slackmaster]

29. I'm somewhat shocked by that, but have to take it with a grain of salt

Seeing a six-year-old not providing accurate answers to that kind of question does not surprise me. They tend to be shy and unsure of themselves. Even a child who is confident that he or she knows the answer may not speak up out of fear of embarrassment.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. I asked for "round eggs" when I was little.

Round as in "hard-boiled".

:D Damn I was a little smartass.