Chris Butterworth’s 2011 picture book How Did That Get in my Lunchbox? The Story of Food is a good and useful overview answer to that question. It starts with kids celebrating the opening of a lunchbox, then segues into that titular question. Each item–the bread, the cheese, the tomato, etc.–gets a two-page spread that starts with the item being created, then its processing (and in some cases, transport). So, the bread starts in the wheat field, gets harvested, ground, and then baked, and so on. Each stage in the process is explained, and in some cases numbered, making it easy to teach with this book (or find your place after a question).
Lucia Gaggiotti’s illustrations are bright, friendly, and efficient, which matters for communicating such complex processes in such short spaces.
There are possible objections to this book. One is that this is a vegetarian book, and so doesn’t have to deal with the emotional complexity of raising animals for meat. The other is that the complicating factors don’t get mentioned. So, there are no laws governing food production or, relevant for the chocolate, importation. The many complications of farming and food processing–bugs, disease, weeds, pesticides, etc.–don’t get mentioned. These are options for picture books, but they do idealize the process (and even Beatrix Potter showed Farmer McGregor threatening Peter Rabbit).
