Junior Warriors Rugby League

Over the past few weeks some of the year 6, 7, and 8 students have been getting coaching from some of the Junior Warriors. They have been playing league on the field at lunchtime. Today were the final games. The entire senior school went up onto the field to cheer on their class mates.
Check out some of the great action shots we got!

Tamati, making a run for it! 

Going in for the tackle

Tamati about to tackle Luisa... 

... but, she side stepped and he missed... 

...and she's off!

Our future food ~ By Luisa

Luisa, has managed to convince me, with the use of facts, humour, and examples, she makes a strong case for something which most of us would consider absurd, but don't let me tell you... read for yourself. Or read more of Luisa's work on her blog gbsluisam.blogspot.co.nz

WALT: Create an argument with a point of view (P.O.V) and reasons for or against.

SC: Use evidence for or against the topic to create an argument.

Here is a link to video clips about Eating bugs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLUF3W_0ps5zpNO28voNwUW_40wyic4i1

I know what you would be thinking, "Gross Insects".? You would be very surprised to see the good side of eating insects and maybe you would consider insects in you healthy diet. Well its up to me to convince you to join my side but before you carry on reading let me tell you a joke. What is a insects favourite sport? Cricket. 

People should include insects in their healthy diet.

In my opinion I agree with the statement and that we should consider eating insects in our healthy diet because insects are very nutritious, raising insects is free and sometimes we don’t know it but we automatically eat food that contain insects in them.

Firstly, Eating insects are not as bad as you think, insects are actually very healthy and environmentally friendly. They have highly more protein, fiber and nutrients like iron and zinc than beef and chicken. We need iron, protein and fibre to keep ourselves healthy. Insects are no different to their relatives shrimp, crabs and lobsters. 2 billion people currently eat insects like tarantulas s or toasted grasshoppers. Plus the after tastes of some insects taste like normal food that we eat every day. Like as some people say “Crickets taste like potato chips” or “Scorpions taste like popcorn”. So what do you think about flavoured insects.?

Also insects have less fat and fewer calories than a piece of chicken, beef or pork. If you  compare a piece of beef to a cricket, a cricket has more protein, vitamins and minerals then a piece of beef which only has protein. Plus insects are more edible and digestible. For example we can only eat 40% meat of a cow, 50%  meat of a chicken but only 80% of a cricket. So when you eat a cow or chicken you're actually wasting the other parts of the animal unlike insects.  There are at least 2,000 edible insects in the world and when people eat them it's called Entomophagy.

Unbelievably, in other countries like Mexico and Cambodia it is very normal to cook and eat insects. Turns out insects are part of their traditional food. Some people would mix insects in cookie mixtures or make grasshopper kebabs. So the message here is that some countries find eating insects completely normal. Insects are slowly starting to appear in Western(Countries like NZ or Aus) menus but most people are still squeamish around cooked insects.

Secondly, raising insects are much more cheaper and free than harvesting cows or chickens. To produce 1kg of beef it takes 22000 liters of water. To produce 1kg of pork it takes 3200 liters of water. But to make 1 kilo gram of a cricket only takes 1 liter of water. Which is because most insects keep hydrated by the food they eat.

Harvesting insects are more efficient for third world countries who find it hard to look for food. To raise insects we use less technology or investments unless they are needed. To grow a piece of meat it takes 200 square meters of land and to grow 1 pound of crickets it takes 15 square meters of land. With all insects that are free its is much easier to hunt and catch them.

Some believe that eating insects are our future food. Higher food prices develop as the years go by, which some people are not able to afford. So we should start to consider insects in our daily food choices because insects are cheap and free. Plus even though I haven't eaten insects I wouldn’t doubt that they are disgusting but I think that they would taste delicious. Nothing wrong with taking one step in my food choices.

Finally, people may not know it or believe it but most of the food we are eating  are contained with insects. Food like fruit canned sodas, peanut butter and chocolate. Shocking right, and I eat chocolate all the time. But I guess healthy insects in junk food makes junk food healthy-I doubt it. Also in every 100 grams of spinach there are at least 50 insects in the spinach. In peanut butter, they only allow 30 body parts of a insects such as heads, bodies or legs.

Now I will be talking about insect food made by some of the famous chefs. For Entree we got Crispy grasshoppers or known as Chapulines which are very famous insects in Mexico but normally people call Chapulines crispy bacon. Now for main is the deep fried tarantulas, deep fried tarantulas are put into tempura batter and then fried in hot oil. Last but not least to finish our meal I have desert Grasshopper almond flour cake, with square pineapples with coco loco ice cream with a touch of grasshopper on the pineapples. I would like to have some tasty fried tarantula, How about you.?

Last but not least insects are more available than any food products. Once all our food products sell out, insects would be all we got along with other animal meat. But I think if we have to choose between meat and insects I guarantee insects would have a better healthier chance than meat because there are enough insects for everyone to share and insects have been around longer than expected.

Including insects in our healthy diet is important because insects are unbelievably healthy, raising insects are more efficient and eating insects are already part of our natural life. But the important question is, Would you eat insects?, I know I would.

Teeth brushing in Room 7

Twice a year we get toothbrushes delivered  to school as part of the Kids Can programme.
Our second toothbrushes arrived today and so we practiced brushing our teeth. 

We should brush our teeth for two minutes. That takes a lot longer than you might think... some of us struggled to brush our teeth for that long. 

Read our blogposts about our experience. 

Looking after our teeth

We had a presentation today from a dental hygienist called Cynthia. She talked to use about two really important things we need to do for caring for our teeth. 

Firstly, sugar. We learned that sugar harms our teeth, and to avoid decay, and rotting painful teeth we need to eat healthy food and not eat or drink foods that are full of sugar. We learned that a bottle of coca-cola has 16 tsp of sugar, when we are only supposed to have 4tsp of sugar a day. Wow. Read our personal blogs to learn more about what we should and should not eat to protect ourselves from tooth decay. 

The second thing we need to do to look after our teeth is brush and floss them every day. We wrote some great tips on our blogs about brushing our teeth and making our own dental floss. 

Cynthia is running a short information evening next Wednesday evening to talk about the ways we can look after our teeth and save money on our dental care. Please come along and hear what Cynthia has to say. There's also going to be a hamper filled with healthy treats from Pak'n'Save for one lucky family, and details to win an electric toothbrush. 

Wednesday 19th August 

5.45pm 

Sausage Sizzle 

Some of the money saving tips Cynthia had were in the picture below:

Healthy Living Everyone

In room 7 we explored what it takes to keep our bodies fit, strong and healthy.

We know we need to keep our hands, clothes and fingernails clean. 

We know we need to exercise to keep our heart, lungs and muscles fit and healthy. 

We also know we need to eat healthy food everyday to give us all the vitamins that we need to power our brains, muscles and immunity. 

As part of our healthy study we learned about the different fruit and vegetables that we can eat to keep healthy. We each got to draw one to contribute to this wonderful 
5 + a Day Healthy Poster. 

We have some very talented artists in Room 7! Ka mau te wehi!