Eduqas GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition: Student Book

4 INTRODUCTION Welcome to our Eduqas GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition textbook. All the authors have collaborated throughout the writing process to deliver the course content in what we hope is a very informal and user-friendly way. You’ll see that we’ve closely followed the content and structure of the exam specification to make sure all the topics have been covered fully. Our editorial team also worked closely with Eduqas throughout the development process, and the book has been endorsed by the awarding body. What’s behind our thinking in writing the book? Our course is divided into four clear sections, designed to help you access specific information easily and quickly. As a group of very experienced teachers we decided to use this approach because we know that this subject is vast, and so a logical route through all that content seemed sensible and important. Therefore we decided to split all the specification theory into two distinct sections – Core Knowledge and Commodities. Our feeling was that it is unlikely that you will simply start at page 1 of the book and then work your way through to the end. We’d recommend the approach that after learning part of Section 1 you will then link this with a topic from another section – this should develop independent and holistic learning. We hope that by doing this your learning is made manageable, straightforward and enjoyable. So what will I find in each section? Section 1 is Core Knowledge This covers eight core knowledge subjects which as authors we felt were vital to getting a good grip on the course. They are the nuts and bolts of food preparation and nutrition, which in our view you really need to understand as the basics. You can tackle them totally separately from Commodities, but they really do filter into the commodity topics found in Section 3. To help in this you will see throughout these which indicates a link to the other topics. For example the Protein topic in Principles of Nutrition will indicate links to the alternative protein foods section found in the commodity: Beans, Nuts and Seeds, Soya, Tofu and Mycoprotein . We’ve covered the following topics in Section 1, and they all match to the exam specification content: • Principles of nutrition • Diet and good health • The science of cooking food • Food spoilage • Food provenance and food waste • Cultures and cuisines • Technological developments • Factors affecting food choice Section 2 is all about the cooking – Basic mixtures and recipes We decided to include standard basic recipes. It wasn’t a hard decision, because once you know how to make these basic recipes you can easily adapt them to suit different ingredient choices. You can easily link these recipes to the Commodities in Section 3, or in fact to every chapter in Section 1. All of your knowledge and understanding of the topics in Sections 1 and 3 can be illustrated through practical work using the recipes in Section 2. The accompanying Digital Teacher Book has many more recipes available. Section 3 is all about the foods – Commodities As well as following the commodities listed in the exam specification, you can see from the groupings opposite that we have also loosely followed the Eatwell Guide. The theory for each group of foods follows a similar format to reinforce your learning: normally each commodity starts with a discussion of where the food originates or comes from, then deals with the nutrition found in the food, how it is processed, how it must be stored, any safety and hygiene points and finally how it is used in cooking. The commodities covered are: • Cereals • Fruit and Vegetables • Milk, Cheese and Yoghurt • Meat, Poultry, Fish and Eggs • Beans, Nuts and Seeds, Soya, Tofu and Mycoprotein • Butter, Oil, Margarine, Sugar and Syrup INTRODUCTION