The Wonder of Bread: Teaching University Students the Cost of Eating with Their Hands

Because many students of college age arrive at school with limited understanding of where food comes from or even how to prepare food from authentic ingredients, I planted a field of wheat so I could teach, and learn about, what went into baking the staff of life—bread. Raising enough wheat to make a single loaf of bread, and then expending the energy to thresh, winnow, grind, knead, and bake was more costly and difficult than imagined at the outset. In the process of making bread with their own hands students learned agronomy, engineering, history, anthropology, environmental science, and economics. And then they consumed what they had learned.