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15 What Are the 5 Food Groups—And Where Do They Come From?

MAKE CONNECTIONS Most of the food we eat we buy in grocery stores. You don’t really get to see where it comes from. Maybe your banana came from Brazil, your rice came from China, and your meat came from Iowa in the United States. Farmers’ markets are different. They’re places to buy food where you can talk to the people who grew, raised, or made it for you! Farms sell their fruits, veggies, meat, milk, cheese, and more at farmers’ markets. Customers come to the market every week to buy their food and ask the farmer questions. The food at farm- ers’ markets also tends to be better for the environment, and better for any animals involved. For example, farmers who sell meat at farmer’s markets often give their animals plenty of space to live, and treat them well. That’s not usually true of the meat you get in the grocery store. And vegetable farmers at markets often don’t use chemicals to grow their food, which can poison water, land, and even humans. They also milk them every day. Cows usually get milked twice a day. In the past, farmers would milk cows by hand. Now, most farmers with more than a cow or two have machines to milk them. Once the farmers collect the milk, they send it to a factory. Some of the factories put milk in containers and send it to stores. Other factories use the milk to make cheese, yo- gurt, ice cream, and other dairy foods. To make yogurt, for example, factories mix the milk with special bacteria that are safe to eat (and are good for you). The bacteria turn the milk into yogurt. Then the factories send the food on to grocery stores. You get to choose how much fat you want in a lot of the dairy you eat. Milk comes in different varieties, all with different amounts of fat. Whole milk has the most fat. Two percent milk has a little less, 1 percent even less, and skim has no fat. You might also see other dairy products that are labeled as reduced-fat, low-fat, or fat- free. All those labels tell you some fat has been taken out of the food.

RESEARCH PROJECT Go to your fridge or cupboard and look at the food you have in your house or apart- ment. Make of list of what food falls under what food group. What grains do you have? What dairy foods are there? What about fruits and vegetables? Or protein? Are there any foods that might fall under more than one food group? Are you missing any major food groups? If you are, what can you buy the next time you’re out shopping that might give you a more balanced diet?