A Shift in Paradigm: Yes, You Can Have Your Crop and Eat It Too.

Educational activities like field trips, hands on exercises, such as cooking, combine knowledge with “doing”. In 2010, in response to an increased interest in the “food-chain – production to consumption”, we added a food lab to the traditionally lecture-based World Crops and Cropping Systems course at Virginia Tech. This is upper-division undergraduate class intended for both major and non-majors. The course also fulfills a requirement for core area 7 (Critical Issues in a Global Context). Therefore, the course attracts students from the entire university (all colleges and over 18 departments each year). The overall objective of adding the food lab to the course was to help students connect the different phases of the food chain – production to consumption. We asked them “what did you learn from the food lab”? Here are some of the responses:  “I learned the economic and cultural importance of these crops and their role in diets in developing countries. I learned all the different ways these crops could be used, some of which I did not expect, like cassava”; “I learned that on a daily basis I eat a lot of crops I didn't realize I was eating. I got to see crops I have heard of but didn't know what they looked like. I also really learned how the rest of the world eats”; I learned that food is important to people of all races not only for nutrition but also it serves a purpose to bring people from all walks of life together and to keep cultures alive”; I learned a lot but I think the biggest take away message was that Americans are exposed to very limited crops and crop preparations. Elsewhere in the world, people live off of crops that many Americans have never heard of and prepare them very differently”. The food lab provides a unique platform to teaches the importance of foods in different cultures.