“36% of eight to 14-year-olds did not know the main ingredient of chips was potato.”
“Nearly one in 10 of the children questioned for the BHF survey thought chips were made of oil, while others suggested eggs, apples and flour.”
“More than a third (37%) did not know cheese was mostly made of milk.”
“Kids have lost touch with even the most basic foods and no longer understand what they are eating.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4413144.stm
But do they know what crisps are?
Wow, not far off the mark!
That’s OK, Gary, most American Children think that particular food
item is made of Freedom.
I doubt at we ever cared a bit about what was in good tasting/textured food when we were that age either. A lot of noise seems to get generated when an “adult” starts presupposing children should have a general knowledge about something adults know, or that children should have the same values as the “adult”.
On a vaguely related theme, I recently saw an article where scientists have now positively identified a taste receptor for fat on the tongues of mice. If a similar receptor can be found on human tongues, and if this recepetor can be blocked somehow, they think they may have found a way to lower our cravings for fatty foods.
djm
I don’t think the taste of the fat has as much to do with our cravings as
the instinct to bulk up for lean winters we no longer have… but you
never know.
Depends how old you are I suppose.
When I was a kid I remember ‘helping’ my mother in the kitchen, kneading and rolling out the dough for bread, peeling the spuds for chips (yes, at 5 years old I knew what chips were made of), shelling peas, washing veggies. All our meals were prepared at home, and being a part of the preparation process was good fun. Besides, it was always warm in the kitchen. “Fast Food” hadn’t been born yet. Sliced bread was new-fangled and “wasn’t the same as mum made” in spite of its name (Mother’s Pride). That was 40 years ago now.
Kids today. They dunno they’re born. 
it’s not really the taste for FAT - it’s that many of the chemicals related to smell (which, unless you are talking sweet, salty, bitter, or acidic - is what you really are talking about) depend on fat (and the melting of fat in the mouth) to move them and release them in the mouth and nasal cavity.
I think this is the main point, not that these kids don’t know what goes into food, but that their parents have stopped spending time educating their children at home, and teachers have apparently stopped educating them at school.
Did you ever meet a child that didn’t ask endless questions about the world around them? Maybe they’ve stopped asking because the parents have stopped answering?
I think that’s going a bit too far. This study is limited to a particular
subject: food. I think the problem is that parents have stopped cooking
at home, and therefore kids don’t absorb as much food knowledge,
which they used to get by helping in the kitchen, as Gary points out.
It’s the same as city kids who don’t know what a cow looks like,
even though they’re intimately familiar with what one tastes like.
I don’t think that extends to parents being completely neglectful
toward their children’s general education.
Well, when the nanny is a TV…
Sadly the website you’re directed to in order to discover the answers http://www.bhf.org.uk/food4thought/ is chud. For one thing, it doesn’t give the answers. For another, the ‘food glossary’ takes an age to find (hint, it’s in the ‘download’ section). And nowhere does it tell you what your fries are made of. 
Surely even parents that don’t cook at home still feed their kids, and that’s the time to tell them what they’re eating, whether they’re in a fast food resturant or at home. Yes, this study is limited to food, and focusses on kids who eat too much junk, but I think further angles can be drawn from the example.
Maybe it’s just my family that was like that. My mother did go on to be a school teacher and a head mistress, so maybe she had teaching tendancies beforehand.
Perhaps they were put off of the idea when the child asked what was
in their meatloaf, and the parents said “cow”, and the kid said “Ewww”
and wouldn’t touch the stuff ever again. I’ve seen this happen. But all
silliness aside, I see your point. Every experience could be educational
for a child if the parent is up to the task…
P.S., Stop calling me Shirley.
My kids have known from Day 1 what it is they’re eating.
They know steak comes from cows, ham and bacon come from pigs, and chicken comes from, well, chickens. 
I can’t see how a parent wouldn’t take the time to really let kids know what it is that they’re filling their body with.
My kids don’t seem to have a problem knowing that they are eating an animal. It’s part of the “Circle of Life”. One animal gives its life for another – and that’s OK. Not that I’m a Native American, but their tradition teaches to honor the animal that gave its life so you can have yours.
(PS: I don’t tell them what their hot dogs are all about. Scares me most of the time, too)
I am more disturbed by the idea of an intentionally disgusting ad. This is part of a general move toward an ever-more-nasty society which I have a real problem with.
Not every kid it the world is fat, you know.
What is the parent of some poor kid undergoing chemo supposed to do? There are kids out there who can barely eat at all…how are they going to react to this “gore-burger” ad?!?
This is irresponsible and reprehensible.
–James
Actually, it’ll probably shrink waistlines by magically making all food tasted like crap 
I agree wholeheartedly.
I think the “disgust” style ads are more effective with adults. Kids just lap it up. They have tried putting really gross pictures on cigarette pacjages here. The kids try to collect the whole set. I was told of a cigarette brand in the UK that used an all black package with skull and crossed bones on it. They couldn’t keep them in stock for the kids buying them up.
djm
If there had been a Chiff&Fipple in 1950, you could have found an almost identical thread decrying the sad state of today’s youth. Or 1980. Or 1920. Or 1680. You folks are just fulfilling the obligatory destiny of the adult generation.
Word. See: Garbage Pail Kids.