 | Food Education and Gastronomic Tradition in Japan and France: Ethical and Sociological Theories Subjects: Environment & Agriculture; Education; Environment and Sustainability; Health and Social Care; Politics & International Relations; Social Sciences; Education Studies; Sociology of Education; Environment & Society; Environment & Health; Agriculture & Environmental Sciences; Education Policy & Politics; Allied Health; Regulatory Policy; Sociology & Social Policy; Agriculture and Food; Education Policy; Nutrition and Dietetics; Health Policy; Education Policy; Sociology of Culture; Medical Sociology; Drawing on ethical and sociological theories of food, this book presents a new approach to food education that moves beyond nutrition-centered education. Food education has gained increasing scientific and political importance in many countries as a promising way to change contemporary eating. However, many practices fail to address two epistemological obstacles regarding its very components - 'food' and 'education'. Food has largely been thought of from a nutritionistic viewpoint alone and the ethical issues over children's freedom of choice and well-being have been largely absent. This book resolves these problems by applying ethical and sociological theories of food and analysing food education in two pioneering countries: Japan and France. The book focuses on taste education and gastronomy, as two key concepts which have great potential to positively impact food education. Taste education is a promising alternative to nutrition-centred pedagogy which foregrounds the experience and pleasure of eating food, creating an environment of taste sensibility and food curiosity. From taste education, the picture can be broadened to examine the role and impact of gastronomy in food education. Examining the cultural traditions of France and Japan reveals how gastronomy can impact eating habits and food cultures and how these criteria should be an intrinsic part of food education. The book concludes by constructing an integrative theory for food education that moves beyond nutrition-centred education for the benefit of one's wellbeing. This book will greatly interest students, scholars, policymakers and educators working on food education, food related issues at the intersection between nutritional and social sciences, and 'gastronomes' searching for a pedagogical guide for developing their capabilities to eat in a more humanistic way. Haruka Ueda is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Nagoya University, Japan. He won the 2022 Young Researcher's Award of the Japanese Society of Agricultural Economics. |
