Kakamigahara City, Sakuraoka Junior High School’s winning menu
School dinners are a subject which periodically causes headlines in the UK media, whether it be the uproar over Channel 4’s Jamie’s School Dinners in 2005 getting politicians interested in school food again, and Tony Blair promising millions of pounds to revive the service, or the introduction of universal free school meals by the coalition government, spearheaded by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg in September 2014, with the aim to improve academic attainment and save families money. Over the course of a year the average UK family spends £437 on school lunches per child. Results have however been mixed, and obesity rates are soaring amongst children throughout the UK.
Go to Japan and you will see very few people who are overweight and even fewer obese. Part of the reason for Japan’s slim figures can be explained a traditional diet of rice, fish, broth-based soups, fruit and vegetables and minimal consumption of red meat. The concept of shokuiku, education about local food and nutrition in Japanese schools and communities, is promoted by local government and their boards of education, with robust policies for school meals and educating children about healthy eating as well as promoting sustainable local and nutritious produce. The Board of Education in the City of Hino within the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) area, 40-minutes by train from the major Tokyo terminal of Shinjuku, sets guidelines of 650 calories per meal, and the city sets a cost target per-meal at ¥282 (£2.06). It is up to school based nutritionist to come up with menus meeting these targets. Local schools therefore have freedom over procurement of ingredients. Hirayama Elementary School in the city, for instance, has decided to source 25% of all vegetables from local producers, ensuring freshness and strengthening the school’s ties with local communities in this semi agricultural area.
As in the UK, Japanese elementary school students can of course be picky when it comes to certain vegetables, carrots and green peppers particularly unpopular. Humans are born preferring the sweet taste of high energy food, useful for survival when food was scarce; an early human being could get a lot of calories without much effort – from honey for example. The same unchecked instinct and our sedentary life style is a major factor in growing obesity in the developed world. Many experts believe that bitterness of unfamiliar tastes is an evolutionary safety mechanism to protect small children from, for example, poisonous berries. One strategy the school nutritionist adopts is to finely chop such vegetables so they can be slipped in under the radar, so to speak. This approach succeeded marvelously in the case of a dish called “rainbow pilaf,” which was popular among Hirayama students despite containing both carrots and green peppers.
Nutritionists within municipal boards of education regularly organise worships and seminars with each in the area to share best practice in nutrition and food education. TMG works with municipalities within the region organising fairs and workshops throughout the region and the year, to support local food education as part of the TMG Food Education Promotion Plan which was adopted by the metropolitan government in 2006. TMG and other prefectural government were legally compelled in 2005 to adopt an area plan to promote healthy eating and lifestyles with the introduction of the Basic Law on Food Education, the introduction of which saw cooperation across government departments and the involvement of the Prime Minister and 12 ministries, and is said to be an example of legislation found nowhere else in the world. Municipal government within the prefectures is encouraged to adopt area specific plans, or can simply adopt the plan of the prefecture.
Other prefectures and municipalities adopt various initiatives and programmes for their own shokuiku plans, particularly focused on children and their food education. Kakamigahara City in Gifu Prefecture has an annual competition as part of its ‘Town Produce Meister Programme’, where schools in the city compete and students are given ‘home cooking meister’ status and work to produce menus for competition. The 2016 winners, three Year 3 students from Kakamigahara City Sakuraoka Junior High School, produced a menu which was served to the mayor of the city as well as the head of the board of education as judges, consisting of chicken with a citrus yuzu dressing, simmered Japanese mustard spinach and bean sprouts, as well as miso soup with cured radish strips. In the competition the students had to use at least one item of local produce from a list of 23, with the winning entry using 13 different ingredient sourced locally. The winning menu was also be served and showcased at an event at a local shopping centre for the public to try and the contest was widely reported in local and region media.
The National Koshien Meeting of Food Education is an annual conference by the 21st Century Concept Study Group NPO, established in 1997, brings together every year municipal boards of education, educationalists and nutritionists from across Japan, with the purpose of encouraging local production for local consumption through food education with the involvement of school nutrition staff, regional NPOs and the private sector. It is also supported by a range of bodies such as the Ministry of education, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Nationwide School nutritionist Council, the General Japan Fisheries Association and the Japan Lunch Service Association. This annual event and the breadth of stakeholder involvement are an indication of how seriously Japan takes the issue of childhood nutrition, not only for the welfare of the young, but also as part of Japan’s deeply cherished food culture symbolised by the high value placed in sustainable regional produce. In the UK the Local Government Association recently commented about the state of school lunches in England that it is ‘deeply worrying that hundreds of academies and free schools are yet to commit to providing healthy school meals to children, more than a year since they were first asked to sign up to new school food standards by government. Councils are responsible for tackling childhood obesity and poor diet as part of our public health responsibilities.
‘It is also vital that our children eat well at school. Nutritional meals mean they are better able to concentrate inside the classroom, as well as learning the importance of healthy eating and avoiding any bad food habits.’ Perhaps Japan, now widely regarded as a food culture super power, can provide a recipes for success for success in the UK.
Sources
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/free-school-lunch-for-every-child-in-infant-school
http://www.city.kakamigahara.lg.jp/appeal/6277/9908/011770.html
http://www.kyushoku.jp/report/2016/01/5592/
http://www.pref.gifu.lg.jp/event-calendar/c17769/maisuta-isyoku-H27.html/http://www.sangyo-rodo.metro.tokyo.jp/nourin/shoku/chisan/sangyo/
http://www.nippon.com/en/views/b00202/
Picture courtesy of Gifu Prefecture
