The traditional K-3 social studies curriculum has focused on food, clothing, shelter, communication, transportation, and other cultural universals, but little information exists about children's prior knowledge and thinking (including misconceptions) about these topics. This study was designed to provide such information with respect to the topic of food, and in the process assess claims that primary-grade students do not need instruction in the topic because they learn what they need to know about it through everyday living. Individual interviews were conducted with 96 K-3 students, stratified according to grade level, achievement level, and gender. Students were asked many diverse questions about the nature of food. Their responses to this food interview displayed many of the same patterns seen earlier in responses to shelter and clothing interviews. They knew more about the physical appearances of things than their underlying natures and more about the uses of finished products than about the land-to-hand transformations involved in creating those products. Response sophistication was related much more closely to age (grade level) and personal experiences out of school than to achievement level or gender. Findings suggest that children do not routinely acquire all, or even a significant portion, of what is worth knowing about cultural universals through everyday experiences. An appropriate balance among the three traditional sources of curricula is called for in K-3, and students stand to benefit considerably from more powerful treatments of cultural universals than those typically offered by textbook series. (Contains a table and 56 references. The "food interview" is appended.) (BT)