GuelphToday received the following letter from University of Guelph professor Massimo Marcone about the ending of food and nutrition courses in some high schools.
Dear Editor:
It has come to my recent attention that some high schools are cancelling their food and nutrition courses. I found this quite surprising and disappointing in that these are some of very subjects that will have a direct impact on their health and wellbeing in the future.
Given that a lot of attention has been focused in the press about food literacy, this seems to be a backward approach to ensuring students acquire the knowledge to understand the composition of food and how it benefits their health and well-being. These courses also provide students with the opportunity to learn how to obtain and practice preparing food for their families, to understand how to modify ingredients to tailor special dietary needs or needs of specific members of their family and what foods to eat to prevent chronic health conditions. We should be promoting courses that focus on these skills- not cancelling them!
As a food scientist, my passion for food stems from an interest in Nutrition to understand how learning about food is essential for daily living. Individuals need to be informed about healthy food choices, and the content of their food to provide them with essential nutrients. Learning about the composition of food allows scientists like myself to adapt and study foods to benefit individuals' well-being.
For example, my research over the past 30 years has focused on many food/nutrition issues such as the effect of different cooking methods and heating solutions in starchy foods, sociological and environmental factors influencing eating food behaviour in Canada, anti-inflammatory effects of cranberry bean extracts, and the antioxidant capacity of food mixtures to breast cancer cells, just to name a few.
Individuals who study Food and Nutrition have many career options, not just chefs or working in the restaurant industry. They can be food scientists like myself or:
• Dieticians.
• Food product developers.
• Food technologist/technicians
• Health and wellness coordinators.
• Health promotion/researchers
• Naturopaths.
• Nutritionists.
• Food writers
• Public health workers
• CCAC caseworkers
• Food inspectors
• Lab technician
• Test kitchen assistant/manager
Cancelling these courses not only prevents students from learning skills needed for daily living but prevents them to aspire to careers related to the Food and Nutrition industry. Additionally, it impacts enrolment in food science, applied nutrition or nutritional science courses at post-secondary institutions like the University of Guelph, preventing students from pursuing these types of careers in the future.
If you have an interest in this field or have been impacted by taking food and nutrition courses in your local high school, contact your school to find out whether these courses are running and advocate for them to continue to run. It is my hope that schools well look at these courses more carefully and see their importance and not remove them from their curriculum.
Yours truly,
M.F. Marcone, Ph.D., C.Chem., Chimiste, FRSC(UK)
Professor
Department of Food Science
University of Guelph
