Food Studies: Units 3 4 2025

What is food and why do we eat it?  What is hunger?  What is appetite?  Satiety.  The sensory appreciation of food. Digestion.  The digestive system.  The absorption of macronutrients. Carbohydrates.  Protein.  Fats. Gut microbiota for health.

The development of the Australian dietary guidelines.  The nutritional rationale of the Australian dietary guidelines.  The Australian dietary guidelines.  The Australian guide to healthy eating.

Differences in dietary requirements across the life span.  Food allergies and intolerances. 

Patterns of eating in Australia.  Recent developments in food purchasing and consumption.    Social factors that influence food choices.  Establishing healthy diets in children.  Drinking water. 

The social and emotional roles of food.  Sharing and celebrating with a peer group.  Sharing and celebrating with communities.  The role of food in influencing mental health.

Food information and the media.  Digital media.  Strategies used to influence food information.  Emotional and psychological responses to food. 

Food systems, behaviours and effects on health.  Political influences on the food system.

The principles of evidence-based research.  Food fads, trends and diets.  Assessing claims made by nutrient supplement companies.

Contexts in which we learn food knowledge and skills.  Australian health information platforms.  Using food labels to compare, select and prepare food.  Nutrition content claims and health claims. Applying the Australian dietary guidelines in everyday life.

Feeding an increasing global population. What is food security. Solutions to food insecurity.  Improved equity in food access and distribution.  Improving food access and distribution for Australians.  Australia's role in improving food access and distribution around the globe.  Food security, food sovereignty and food citizenship.

Sociocultural and ethical concerns for Australian consumers.  Sociocultural factors.  Ethical principles of concern to Australian consumers.  Consumer concern about animal welfare.  Environmental stewardship.  Social justice issues.

The following section comes from Catherine McAuley College.

Ethics is a very broad topic, as you know, and covers many different aspects but basically involves looking at human behaviour in the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food. Over the past century, the production, distribution, preparation, and consumption of food have dramatically altered.

Remember - All ethical issues have three parts: 

1) A topic that is debated / contested / controversial

2) Ideas of Right and Wrong

3) Different paths of action that lead to different outcomes

Examples:

• Seasonal foods means purchasing only foods that are in season. Choosing these reduces food miles. E.g. Purchasing a tomato in winter.
• The suffering of animals reared for human consumption
  • Pain in fish
  • Free range (a method of farming where animals are allowed to roam freely.)
  • Bobby calves
  • Live trade and live export (Shipping live animals overseas)
  • Ethical Meat (Videos)
• Food labeling - Should GMO foods be labeled?
• Sugar tax- Should foods high in sugar be taxed more highly than other foods?
• Use of child or bonded labour, or employment of illegal immigrants.
• Marketing campaigns that could encourage obesity.
• Packaging that leads to excess purchases with implications for obesity.
• Agressive marketing campaigns aimed at the vulnerable (e.g. promoting chocolate and other confectionery products to children).
• Inappropriate marketing campaigns (e.g. sports equipment for schools that require the purchase of a large number of confectionery or snack products).
• Sponsorship that seems aimed at promoting ethically inappropriate food products.

TIP: Ethics usually involves competing values:

• The value of food. Food is essential for the survival of human beings; hunger results from neglect of the universal right to food.
• The value of enhanced well-being. Today, nearly every nation state recognizes the need to enhance the well-being of its citizens. Such improvements in well-being also advance human dignity and self-respect.
• The value of human health. Human health is improved by the elimination of hunger and malnutrition. Healthy people are more able to participate in human affairs and more able to live productive and meaningful lives.
• The value of natural resources. All human societies recognize the importance of natural world that are used to produce food and other valued goods and which are necessary for our survival and prosperity.
• The value of nature. Finally, there is growing agreement that nature itself must be valued. As our power to modify nature grows, there is also an increasing recognition of the beauty, complexity and integrity of nature, and of the limits to humans' restructuring of the natural world. 

Sustainable farming practices. The environmentally sustainable use of chemicals in primary food production. Use of water in primary food production systems. Choice of crops and animals for farming.

Risks to environmental sustainability in Australia.  What is biosecurity?  Biosecurity on Australian farms.  Climate change.  Loss of biodiversity.

The environmental impact of food processing and retailing.  Energy use.  Water use.  Improving environmental sustainability in marketing, retailing and food service.  Food packaging and the environment.  Food transportation.  Food waste.