School food, sustainability, and interdependence: learning from Japan’s <i>Shokuiku?</i>

Abstract

<p>As the sustainability imperative looms, mainstream educational research in the English-speaking world continues a long tradition of failing to see food as integral to education. Japan’s tradition of <em>Shokuiku</em> (food education) stands in stark contrast, providing an external reference point to direct critical attention on Anglo-American school food philosophies, policy, and practice. This article analyses <em>Shokuiku</em>, tracing the genealogy of Japan’s 2005 Basic Law on <em>Shokuiku</em>, a landmark education policy that shifted the 1954 School Lunch Act away from the scientific and nutritional discourses of the mid-20^th century and back to Japan’s school food cultural traditions. While still teaching nutrition, Japan’s <em>Shokuiku</em> emerges as distinctive in its broader goals of interdependence, gratitude towards nature, emphasis on culture, and awareness of relations between production, consumption, and sustainability. From a pragmatic perspective, <em>Shokuiku</em> may offer new ways to combat rising obesity worldwide, lessen meat consumption, and reduce humanity’s unsustainable ecological footprint.<br></p>