You actually have two problems:
[1] the nature of the food supply system;
[2] the often bizarre and generally biochemically/physiologically unsound
principles that abound in popular media, health food shops, and doctors
offices about what is the right food.
I have found teenagers much enjoyed, readily understood text at pages 28-30
of Bill Mollison's 'Permaculture: A Designer's Manual' under the heading
"2.7 Pyramids, Food Webs, Growth, and Vegetarianism" which offers a sensible
view of our place in food systems. The caption for Figure 6, page 29 is
"TROPHIC PYRAMID: Life systems are rarely strictly hierarchical [that seems
to strike a chord with teenagers here too ;-) ] as in the pyramid structure.
Most species are omnivorous and all species recycle valuable waste products
to lower levels of the trophic ladder. Thus, life systems are a web or
cyclic systems rather than a pyramid."
I think it's hard to start at 'the system we have now' in industry terms.
But I think you can, without being utopian, give a quick sense of where we
are in the overall eco-food system and proceed to 'what therefore do we
need' and then do case studies of what is actually supplied by the market.
Kids, in my experience are put off totally unless you give them a key to
figure things out sensibly themselves. The kind of start point I have in
mind helps thinking to counter the deluge of 'healthy food advice' from
commercial interests.
Dennis
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