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For schools

A lesson in evidence,
disguised as a murder trial

Four foods stand trial. The class sits on the jury. Questions appear during the film and each table has to agree an answer before the evidence continues.

Why it works in a classroom

Food education usually arrives as rules to obey. Rules given without reasons do not survive contact with a vending machine.

This arrives as a mystery to solve. Students commit to an answer before they hear the rest of the evidence — and that order is the whole point. A student told the answer forgets it by Thursday. A student who argued for it in front of their friends, and then watched the evidence go the other way, remembers what changed their mind.

The subject is nutrition. The lesson is epistemics: how studies get funded, how a strong claim differs from a loud one, and how to tell consensus from controversy. Those skills outlast any particular dietary advice.

83 minutes

Four parts. Three of about seventeen minutes, then the trial itself.

All ages

A ten-year-old follows the story. The argument lands harder with older students.

Tables of four

Each table answers once, so they have to talk it through and agree.

No phones needed

A show-of-hands mode works where devices are not allowed.

How it divides

Four parts, four lessons

It does not have to be watched in one sitting. Each part stands on its own, and a department can take the one that suits it without the others. The first three run about seventeen minutes; the trial itself runs thirty-three.

1

What food is, and what happened to it0–17 min

Protein, fat, what the body needs and cannot make, and what changed when food began to be manufactured.

2

How we got here17–33 min

Evolution, cooking, early diets, the agricultural transition, and the argument that food shaped which countries industrialised first.

3

Who decided, and how33–50 min

Dietary guidelines and how they reversed, engineered appetite, marketing to children, and correlation against cause.

4

Inside the body50–83 min

The trial proper — it begins the moment the judge enters. The mechanism traced through the bloodstream, then the verdict, which the class delivers. Twice the length of the others, so allow a double period.

There is a written lesson plan for each of the four — objectives, the questions to ask, what to do when a table will not stop arguing, and an exit slip. Ask and I will send them.

Where it fits

Which class, and which part

It is not only a health film. Different sections do different work, and most departments will find something they can use on its own.

Family & Consumer Sciences

All four parts

The core fit. Food, appetite, nutrition, and how the food supply is engineered — argued rather than instructed. One lesson block with the discussion, or two periods split at the halfway mark.

Health Education

Part one

Chronic inflammatory disease, what drives it, and why dietary advice has reversed repeatedly. Pairs with units on lifestyle, prevention and health literacy.

Biology

Part four

Cell turnover, lipid transport, mitochondrial energy production, insulin and lipolysis, ketone metabolism. Also protein digestion, essential amino acids and antinutritional factors.

Chemistry

Part four

Saturated and unsaturated bonds, why polyunsaturated fats oxidise and saturated ones cannot, free radical chemistry, aldehyde formation in heated oils, and glycation. Molecular structure with a consequence attached.

Statistics & Scientific Method

Part three, and the claims table

The strongest fit after FCS. Correlation and causation, confounding — the breastfeeding IQ study is a worked example — dietary recall as unreliable data, and the difference between consensus and a contested finding. Students can audit the published claims table and decide whether each label is right.

Media Literacy

Part three

How products are engineered for overconsumption, how children are marketed to, and how a commercial interest shapes a claim. The director's own conflict of interest is declared in the film, which makes a useful exercise in itself.

Psychology

Part three

Taste physiology, the protein appetite, how preference is formed in childhood, and why sensory engineering defeats conscious intention.

World History

Part two

Irish cattle and provisions exports to Britain, the Cattle Acts of 1663 and 1667, and the argument that nutrition shaped industrialisation. Presented as an original and unproven thesis, which makes it usable as a source-criticism exercise.

Anthropology & Prehistory

Part two

The cooking hypothesis, stable isotope analysis of early diets, and the skeletal record at the agricultural transition. Includes a claim the film marks as unsupported — cranial size and intelligence — which is deliberately left in and flagged.

Economics & Business

Part three

Commodity substitution, industrial by-products becoming food, marketing to establish lifelong preference, and how an industry responds to a threat to its category.

Government & Civics

Part three

How public health policy is made, what happens when 180 scientists demand a retraction, and how an institution handles a challenge to its own advice.

English, Debate & Speech

Part four, and the structure throughout

The film is a trial. Prosecution, defence, cross-examination, unreliable witnesses and a closing argument. Students can be assigned a suspect to defend using only what the film presents.

Culinary Arts & ProStart

Parts one and four

Why frying oils degrade, what happens at temperature, which fats are stable, and why the same dish is different depending on what it is cooked in.

Environmental Science & Geography

Part two

Soil fertility and micronutrient availability, the agricultural transition, and the argument connecting soil quality to population outcomes.

The claims table is the sharpest exercise. Every claim in the film is published at poshpork.com/evidence, marked as consensus, contested, or the director's own unproven argument. Give students a claim each and ask whether the label is right. Several are genuinely arguable, and two are hypotheses that have never been peer-reviewed — the film says so.

What it costs

$249

One school, one year · €249 in Europe

  • ·Unlimited classroom use for a year, across every department
  • ·The interactive room mode — students answer on their own phones
  • ·Show-of-hands mode where devices are not permitted
  • ·Facilitator guide, discussion questions and the claims table
  • ·Anything new made during your licence year

Request a licence from Colin by emailing colin@poshpork.com

Three or more schools in a district, or a whole network — write and we will work something out. The same is true if you want it and cannot afford it. Say so.

Watch it before you decide

No teacher should have to buy a film they have not seen. Write from a school address and I will set up free access the same day, with no obligation and nobody following up to ask what you thought.

screening@poshpork.com

The full guide to running it with a class is at poshpork.com/facilitator.

The film is for education and entertainment. It is not medical advice, and nothing in it should replace a conversation with a doctor. No student should change anything about how they eat on the strength of a film.