Try it: plate detectives
- At your next meal, pick three things on your plate.
- For each one, wonder together: a plant, an animal, or something else? Mixed foods have several starting places.
- Go to the kitchen and find its packet, sticker or label. Where was it grown or made?
- Tell one possible story backwards. Add the steps you find; it might not have come from a farm.
For the windowsill
Next time you cut up a carrot, keep the top. Stand it in a saucer with a little water and put it in the light.
New green leaves may grow over the next week or two. It will not grow another thick carrot to eat. Draw what you see today and look again another day.
You need: a meal, whatever packets are in the kitchen, a carrot top and a saucer.
One meal, many starting places
Choose something mixed, like a sandwich. Name or draw its ingredients and make a separate trail for each. Keep an “other” space for things such as mushrooms, salt and water. You do not have to squeeze every food into plant or animal.
Grown-up notes
Each line is marked Fact well established,
Model a deliberate simplification, or
Unsure not settled.
Play another way
Pick one invitation, then let your child lead. Watching, pointing or changing her mind all count; there is no answer to pass.
- Choose bread and follow it back to wheat. Go forwards again, noticing when its shape changes.
- Compare an apple’s journey with bread’s. Which steps are shared, and which are different?
- Build a sandwich and trace its ingredients separately. One meal can have several starting places.
Another connection: What is everything made of?
The idea
- FactNearly everything we eat starts as a plant or an animal, grown or raised on a farm or caught in the sea, and travels to reach the plate.
- FactBread. Wheat grain is crushed into flour at a mill. A bakery mixes flour with water, yeast and salt and bakes it.
- FactMilk. Cows are generally milked twice a day. The milk is chilled on the farm, collected by tanker, and at the factory it is pasteurised: heated to 72 °C for at least 15 seconds to kill harmful germs. Refrigerated trucks take it to the shops.
- FactEggs. Hens lay them. On egg farms they are collected at least once a day, then cleaned, checked for cracks, sorted by weight and packed into cartons.
- FactApples. They grow on trees and are picked by hand, then washed, graded and packed. Cold storage is why Australian apples are in the shops all year.
- FactChips. Potatoes grow underground. At a factory they are washed, peeled, cut, cooked for about a minute, frozen and bagged.
What the pictures simplify
- Model"A plant or an animal" covers nearly all food, not quite all. Mushrooms, and the yeast in bread, are fungi, which are neither. Salt is a mineral. The third "Wonder more" question is there for this.
- ModelOne farm, one truck. Real journeys have more steps: grain silos, milk tankers, warehouses and several trucks. The toy shows one of each.
- ModelMilk. The toy goes from cow to factory. In between, the milk waits in a chilled vat on the farm and travels in a tanker.
- ModelApples. In the toy they go straight to the shop. Many spend months in cold storage first.
- ModelCooking at home. Toasting the bread, boiling the egg and heating the chips are left out.
- ModelThe farm scene puts wheat, cows, hens, apples and potatoes on one farm. Most real farms grow one or two things.
- ModelNo meat in the toy. It was left out to keep the toy to five foods, not to hide it. A calm answer is below.
Questions she may ask
- Where does meat come from? FactMeat comes from animals killed for food, including farmed animals and animals caught in the wild. Families make different choices about eating it.
- Is there a chick in my egg? FactUsually not. Most eating eggs are unfertilised because the hens are kept without a rooster. A chick needs a fertilised egg and suitable warmth to develop.
- Why does a cow make milk? FactTo feed her calf, the same way all mother mammals do. Dairy cows give milk after they have had a calf.
- Is a mushroom a plant? FactNo. Mushrooms are fungi, a group of living things that is neither plant nor animal.
- Do all foods come from farms near us? FactNo. Some travel a long way, even by ship from other countries. A label can give clues, but "packed in" or "made in" is not always where each ingredient grew.
Words this guide teaches
Farm: a place where plants and animals are raised for food. Crop: plants a farmer grows.
Factory: a place where food is made ready and packed.
Go further
Calmsley Hill City Farm in Abbotsbury, western Sydney, is a working farm open to visitors, with cow milking,
sheep shearing and animals to feed. Check
the farm's website for hours, show times and prices before you go.
Sources
- ACCC, country-of-origin claims: grown, made and packed describe different parts of a food’s journey.
- Oregon State University Extension, carrot tops: leaves can regrow, but not a new taproot.
- NSW Department of Primary Industries, backyard poultry: hens can lay eggs without a rooster; fertilisation needs one.
- Dairy Australia, "How Milk is Made": milking, chilling, tankers, pasteurisation and refrigerated delivery.
- Australian Eggs, "Collecting, Grading & Sizing Eggs": daily collection, checking, sizing and cartons.
- Apple and Pear Australia: cold storage and year-round Australian apples.
- Lamb Weston, "The process from potato to fries": the factory steps for frozen chips (a European maker; the steps are the same).
- Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre, wheat: Australian wheat growing.
Checked November 2026. Milling and baking, potatoes growing underground, unfertilised shop eggs,
why cows make milk and what fungi are come from standard knowledge, not from a linked page.