Food and Society
What you must understand
Food is social as well as nutritional. Understand food security (physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food), the causes of food poverty, and the effects of poor diet on health, learning and productivity.
Know how food reaches the table: farming, fishing, processing, packaging, transport, retail and the consumer - and the jobs involved. Consider the effects of food processing and manufacturing (convenience, longer shelf life, added salt, sugar and fat), globalisation of diets, food waste, and the environmental cost of packaging and transport.
Learn about food assistance and community programmes: school meals, food banks, community gardens, nutrition education and local farming initiatives. Be able to discuss family meals, hospitality and celebration foods as social glue.
Traps in questions
- Defining food security only as "enough food in the world" - access and use matter too.
- Listing benefits of processing without acknowledging drawbacks.
- Giving opinions without reasons or examples.
- Confusing food waste with food loss during farming and transport.
Worked rule of thumb
For discussion questions, use point → explain → example → evaluate: make the point, explain it, give a local example, then say how strong it is. This structure earns discussion marks rather than description marks.
Culture and the Caribbean/Bahamian Context
What you must understand
Know the staple foods and dishes of the region and the nutrients they supply: starchy staples such as rice, cornmeal, cassava, sweet potato, plantain, breadfruit and pigeon peas; proteins such as fish (snapper, grouper, conch), chicken, pork, beans and peas; fruits such as mango, papaya, guava, pineapple, banana and coconut; and flavourings such as thyme, allspice, hot peppers, lime and coconut milk.
Understand the history behind the cuisine: indigenous foods, African influences brought through enslavement, European colonial dishes, and East Indian and Chinese contributions. Recognise traditional dishes - for example peas and rice, conch salad, cracked conch, johnny cake, dumplings, stew fish, souse and boil-and-fry - and be able to name their main nutrients.
Consider how season, festivals, religion and tourism shape food habits, and how traditional diets can be healthier than imported convenience foods because they are high in fibre, fruit and vegetables and low in added salt and sugar.
Traps in questions
- Describing a dish without naming the nutrients it supplies.
- Forgetting that coconut milk is high in saturated fat.
- Treating "traditional" as automatically healthy - frying and salted meats are common.
- Ignoring the cultural reasons behind food choices.
Worked rule of thumb
For any local dish, answer in three lines: main ingredients → nutrients supplied → one health or cultural comment. For example, peas and rice: pigeon peas and rice → protein, complex carbohydrate, fibre → inexpensive, filling and a good plant-protein meal.
Practical Investigation and Coursework
What you must understand
Coursework rewards a clear, honest record of what you did. Structure your work as aim → hypothesis or prediction → method → results → analysis → conclusion → evaluation. State variables: what you changed (independent), what you measured (dependent), and what you kept the same (controlled) for a fair test.
Record results in a labelled table with units, then present them in a graph with a title, labelled axes and even scales. Use sensory testing properly: a hedonic scale for liking, a ranking or paired comparison test for preference, and a triangle test to detect a difference between samples. Use several tasters and describe the panel.
Evaluate honestly: what went well, what limited accuracy, what you would change. Keep records of hygiene, timing, temperatures and quantities. Reference sources and acknowledge help.
Traps in questions
- Writing a method as a list of ingredients rather than steps.
- No control or no repeat, so results cannot be trusted.
- Tables without units or headings; graphs without axis labels.
- Drawing a conclusion that the results do not support.
- Forgetting to evaluate limitations - evaluation carries real marks.
Worked rule of thumb
Before starting, write one sentence: "I will change ___, measure ___, and keep ___ the same." If you cannot fill all three blanks, the investigation is not yet a fair test.