Food is not an easy theme to research on the web in the sense of finding sites giving good detached overviews. There are a lot of promotional and personal sites whose origin needs to be taken into account when judging their value. Most of the sites below provide up-to-date background information and may supply original materials in authentic language for use in your class

On our Heritage edition pages you can find a number of links Food Websites - Recipe Links - while on Webpage recipes you can find links to those on our site

Food in the UK

The BBC www.bbc.co.uk

They are also publishers of BBC Good Food Magazine. Popular articles, recipes, articles on food programmes and celebrity chefs and so on - not a site to give a critical view.

The Open University www.open2.net/everwondered_food/culture/culture_index.htm - a series of short and interesting items on food culture

The Guardian www.guardian.co.uk see website review - known as Guardian Unlimited it has an excellent and very useful free archive. A very good starting point if you are investigating anything about food in the UK or elsewhere with plenty of critical commentary. Not only news items but recipes, restaurant reviews and so on

British food and recipe sites

·         Best British Food www.bestbritishfood.freeserve.co.uk - a personal site with a collection of recipes from the family and those sent in to the site. Not comprehensive but these are recipes people really cook in their homes

·         Britain Express http://www.britainexpress.com/History/english-culture.htm - a tourist site with recipes for a number of traditional dishes

·         British Traditionals www.britishtraditionals.com - an American site for those looking for a Britain that doesn’t exist (and never did), with the foods that are supposed to be eaten if you are truly ‘British’, and recipes for them

• About food www.aboutfood.co.uk a site for linking suppliers with restaurants, shops and so on - but more than this with recipes and articles about fine food in the UK too

·         Scottish food and drink www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland - a site from the University of Edinburgh with good simple introductions to dishes and many further links 

·         Ireland - Cead Mile Faile www.jantacc.demon.co.uk/ire.htm - for a series of recipes for Irish dishes

UK Government sites

The best starting point to find out about policy is the government search engine: Ukonline www.ukonline.gov.uk - see review - simply type in what you want to find out about and you will get the relevant government sites

• The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) http://www.defra.gov.uk/
• Food From Britain www.foodfrombritain.com - government food marketing site
• The Food and Drink Federation www.fdf.org.uk - promoting the interests of the British food industry
• Food Standards Agency http://www.food.gov.uk/ a government body responsible for food safety and standards e.g. a review is currently underway into The Promotion of Foods to Children
• Institute of Food Research www.ifrn.bbsrc.ac.uk

Food shopping

Supermarkets - a Guardian Special Report www.guardian.co.uk/supermarkets/0,12784,874521,00.html. This contains links to a large number of recent articles on issues connected with hypermarkets in the UK. Here is a recent headline to give you a taste www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,843541,00.html:

Tesco buyout 'will kill small stores and hit communities'

Felicity Lawrence, consumer affairs correspondent

Supermarket home sites

• Tesco www.tesco.com
• Tesco Poland www.bonytowarowe.pl

·      Sainsburys www.sainsburys.co.uk

·       Safeway www.safeway.co.uk

·       Asda www.asda.co.uk

Food and agriculture

The Soil Association www.soilassociation.org for details about organic farming

Organic Food Federation www.organicfood.co.uk 

For more countryside links - see http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/c_links.htm

Food and health

British Nutrition Foundation www.nutrition.org.uk. If you want to find out about the food you eat, or the food you should be eating, this is the place to do it. Lots of information about how nutrition is becoming a big issues in British schools and the type of Food Technology courses which are being developed in the curriculum.

The European Food Information Council www.eufic.org/gb/home/home.htm - an educational site of the European Union (in several languages) with many good materials for raising food awareness in the classroom including links to UK national curriculum. Especially directed at children are its ‘sub sites’ www.coolfoodplanet.org and www.foodstudents.net

Some American sites

Teens health www.teenshealth.org and Kids Health www.kidshealth.org

For more health links - see http://elt.britcoun.org.pl/h_links.htm  

Food and politics

Food and Agriculture Organisation www.fao.org - a part of the United Nations

Third world food issues

Oxfam www.oxfam.org.uk 

Genetically-modified food

Nuffield Council on Bioethics www.nuffieldbioethics.org