We learn to read, count, swim. But do we learn to eat? To understand what you put on your plate, to make enlightened choices, to transmit solid benchmarks to your children? Apart from a few prevention messages, food education remains unclear, almost nonexistent.
The Shokuiku, a national philosophy before being a method
In Japan, this question has long been the subject of an official framework. A method of food education, implemented on a national scale, structures the way in which children, families and even communities approach meals. His name: Shokuiku.
Adopted by the Japanese government in 2005, the Shokuiku method is based on a simple conviction: we are not born with the sense of food balance, we acquire it. And it involves education from an early age. The term “” literally means “, but it is far from limiting itself to dietetic advice.
In Japanese schools, students participate in the preparation of meals, learn where food comes from, how they are produced and why certain combinations are beneficial. The meal becomes a moment of active learning, and not just a break between two lessons.
5 errors revealed by this method on our habits
Shokuiku highlights several gaps in our daily practices, often trivialized but nevertheless avoidable.
- Ignore the provenance and the season of food: few consumers identify what they buy, from where it comes from, or if it is in season.
- Eat alone or in precipitation: facing a screen, on a corner of the table, without real moment of sharing.
- Discarding children from the preparation of meals: while involvement from an early age anchors sustainable habits.
- Choosing ultra-transformed foods for ease: the speed of speed too often prevails over that of quality.
- Reduce the act of eating to a biological function or an immediate pleasure: while it is also a cultural, educational and collective act.
In Japanese schools, these dimensions are approached very early. Nutrition is integrated into school life, with menus designed by dieticians, and meals taken in an educational setting.
An approach that questions our education system
The Japanese method is not content to inform. It forms. It incorporates food into a global educational project, just like mathematics or history. This model directly questions the French system, where we still too often delegate these learning to the family circle, without solid public framework.
Some local initiatives are trying to introduce this logic, with workshops, school vegetable gardens, or external speakers. But these approaches remain marginal, without national impetus. The contrast to the Japanese approach underlines one thing: as long as food education remains optional, our bad habits have long life.
