This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Wheat Food Council. All opinions are 100% mine.
The kids and I have been learning some terrific stuff at the How Wheat Works website. This is a wonderful educational site- you homeschooling parents should check it out with your kids! I learned things about wheat that I never knew before. Er, make that: that I never knew. I did not grow up on a farm and I know nothing about agriculture. I am interested in how things work, especially as it relates to our economy, so this is a very well-rounded education for us.
The How Wheat Works website takes you through the entire production of wheat- from “farm to fork,” as they say. The nice thing is that they get you involved in several ways- one, you can create an account and actually participate in the process. You virtually plant your own wheat (we selected durum and have harvested our crop already!) and the website shows you everything about wheat. I found it fascinating, and so did the kids. This is SO COOL. For example, did you know that:
- The combine machine has radically changed the wheat industry? For thousands of years before that machine was invented, men had to reap the grain fields by hand, and animals had to thresh it (threshing was the process of beating the kernels out of the grain head). But the combine came along and is able to cut and separate the grain. The combine can harvest 32 acres of wheat using the same amount of labor used for one acre in the past!
- It takes a combine only 12 minutes to harvest one acre of wheat field!
- The United States exports HALF of all wheat produced in here, yet we only rank as fourth place for wheat-production! China, European Union, and India rank higher in production, but the US is the largest exporting nation in the world! The major US importers of wheat are Japan, Egypt, Nigeria, Mexico, and Iraq.
Another very cool thing about the website is that the Wheat Foods Council will donate two pounds of flour (up to 90,000 lbs) to Operation Homefront, a non-profit organization that helps needy U.S. troops and their families. That’s a VERY good reason to try out the How Wheat Works website. When I logged in recently, it said there were 606 participants so far. I think we should try to boost that number. You have nothing to lose but ignorance.
How Wheat Works is a great website. Have the kids do it, they will “reap” great rewards!
I’m looking forward to our own next step, which will take us through the milling and baking process. I know that elementary education requires this kind of curriculum-learning about foods and the production of it from farm to fork-How Wheat Works is an exception educating tool, and it helps needy people, too. Please check it out!
Fri, Jan 8, 2010
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