By Cyril KimbiFood and Nutrition is examined far more scientifically than candidates expect. It looks like a practical subject about cooking; the paper is largely about nutrients, their functions, deficiency conditions and the reasoning behind food choices — and it is marked with the precision of a science.
The nutrient table is the spine of the subject
Almost every question connects back to it. Build one table and drill it until you can reproduce any row from memory.
| For each nutrient, know | Example of what is examined |
|---|---|
| Function in the body | Why protein is needed for growth and repair |
| Food sources | Animal and plant sources, and local examples |
| Deficiency condition | The named condition, not “you get sick” |
| Effect of excess | Where the syllabus names one |
| Effect of cooking or storage | Which nutrients are lost, and how |
Cover proteins, carbohydrates, fats, the vitamins, the minerals, water and dietary fibre. The named deficiency conditions are straightforward recall marks and are frequently lost by candidates who wrote a general description of ill health instead of the name.
The point that carries most marks and is least prepared: which nutrients are destroyed by heat, dissolved in cooking water, or lost in storage, and what that implies for how food should be prepared. That reasoning appears constantly.
Meal planning is a justification question
You are given a person or a group — a pregnant woman, a toddler, an adolescent, an invalid, an elderly person, a manual worker — and asked to plan a meal or a diet.
The marks are not in the menu. They are in the justification against that group’s needs. A plan for a pregnant woman should explain the increased requirement for protein, iron and folate and name foods that supply them. A plan for a toddler should address small stomach capacity, energy density and texture.
The structure that scores: name the dish or food, then say which nutrient it supplies and why this group needs it. A menu without reasons earns a fraction of the available marks.
Practical constraints are also rewarded where the question raises them — cost, seasonal availability, and what can be prepared without refrigeration.
Hygiene, spoilage and preservation
A definition-dense area and a reliable source of marks.
Know what causes food to spoil — micro-organisms, enzymes, moisture, warmth, air — and then treat every preservation method as an attack on one of those causes. Drying removes moisture; salting and sugaring make water unavailable; smoking dries and deposits preservative compounds; heating destroys micro-organisms and enzymes; cooling slows them.
Presented that way the topic stops being a list to memorise and becomes a principle you can apply to an unfamiliar method in the exam.
For hygiene, be specific rather than general. “Be clean” earns nothing; “wash hands with soap before handling food and after handling raw meat, to prevent transfer of bacteria to ready-to-eat food” earns the mark and its explanation.
Practical and method questions
Where the paper asks about preparation, it is testing method and reasoning, not the recipe.
Expect to explain why a particular method suits a particular food, what happens to the food during it, how nutrient loss is minimised, and which safety and hygiene steps apply. Steaming rather than boiling, for instance, is justified by reduced loss of water-soluble vitamins — that clause is the mark.
Where a plan of work is required, write it in order with timings, and include the cleaning and safety steps. They are marked.
Use local foods
Examples drawn from what is actually eaten and available are both easier to justify and more convincing than textbook examples. Local staples, pulses, groundnuts, leafy vegetables, fruit, fish and palm oil illustrate every nutrient group in the syllabus.
It also matters for the reasoning questions: a diet plan that assumes ingredients a family cannot obtain answers the question badly, even if the nutrition is sound.
A revision routine
- Build the nutrient table in week one and reproduce it from memory weekly.
- Learn the deficiency conditions by name, tested description-to-name.
- Write meal plans with justifications for each named group in the syllabus — one per group.
- Turn preservation into principles: one page linking each method to the cause of spoilage it removes.
- Past papers timed, marked strictly against the scheme, with a logged list of losses.
Frequently asked questions
Is Food and Nutrition a science subject?
In how it is examined, largely yes. The reasoning about nutrients, spoilage and cooking losses is scientific.
Do I need to memorise deficiency conditions by name?
Yes. The named condition is the mark; a general description of illness is not.
How much detail in a meal plan?
Enough to justify every item against the named group’s needs. The justification carries the marks, not the menu.
Can I use local foods in answers?
Yes, and it usually strengthens the answer, particularly where the question involves cost or availability.
What is most often lost?
Marks on nutrient losses during preparation and storage, and on justification in meal planning.
