Last week was a great week to begin putting pieces together...
Larva eat dead stuff, like raccoons and badgers that have died.
Mold consumes dead stuff, like plant parts (think fruit and vegetable peels).
Worms eat dead plant parts, too, just like the mold.
So that got us thinking...if lots of organisms eat dead stuff (animals and plants), do we eat dead stuff, too? It seems pretty obvious since we certainly eat dead animals (think chicken on a salad, shrimp from the grill, or a a juicy hamburger or steam) and plants (salads, fruit, etc). But not everything we eat looks like it comes from nature (an animal or a plant).
So we investigated other various foods we eat....think processed stuff. And after looking at the first two ingredients on these types of food, yup, the pattern continued. Much of the processed foods we eat comes from animals and plants as well! Here is our list we created!
Larva eat dead stuff, like raccoons and badgers that have died.
Mold consumes dead stuff, like plant parts (think fruit and vegetable peels).
Worms eat dead plant parts, too, just like the mold.
So that got us thinking...if lots of organisms eat dead stuff (animals and plants), do we eat dead stuff, too? It seems pretty obvious since we certainly eat dead animals (think chicken on a salad, shrimp from the grill, or a a juicy hamburger or steam) and plants (salads, fruit, etc). But not everything we eat looks like it comes from nature (an animal or a plant).
So we investigated other various foods we eat....think processed stuff. And after looking at the first two ingredients on these types of food, yup, the pattern continued. Much of the processed foods we eat comes from animals and plants as well! Here is our list we created!
L9 Processed Food Ingredients List
Processed Food Item Ingredient Label First Two Ingredients Multigrain Cheerios Whole grain oats Whole grain corn Mini Eggs Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Milk, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, PGPR (Emulsifier), Artificial and Natural Flavors), Sugar Ritz Crackers...
All this researching got us thinking that we could represent all this "eating of dead" stuff mathematically.
So now that all this "eating of dead" stuff makes more sense, we also figured out the reasons behind why organisms eat dead stuff. We came to an agreement on the following reasons why organisms eat dead stuff:
1. To grow bigger.
2. To repair damage to their bodies (think of getting a scrape!)
3. To get energy to move
4. To maintain your body temperature (if you're warm-blooded).
The interesting thing in all this, is that we are remembering the raccoon that started all this figuring out. The raccoon Mrs. Brinza saw on the side of the road was certainly an adult. It was once small, too, and consumed lots of dead stuff to grow bigger into adulthood. Check back after spring break as we figure this out!
1. To grow bigger.
2. To repair damage to their bodies (think of getting a scrape!)
3. To get energy to move
4. To maintain your body temperature (if you're warm-blooded).
The interesting thing in all this, is that we are remembering the raccoon that started all this figuring out. The raccoon Mrs. Brinza saw on the side of the road was certainly an adult. It was once small, too, and consumed lots of dead stuff to grow bigger into adulthood. Check back after spring break as we figure this out!