Bored with fast food and concerned about the disappearance of regionally distinctive dishes, people in Japan are waking up to the virtues of "slow food." Many are spearheading a slow-food movement with the objective of encouraging people - including children - to rethink modern eating habits. One innovative approach to deepening students' knowledge of food has been through the school lunch program. Schools, food producers, local residents, and volunteers are working together to instill in youngsters an appreciation of food culture and a desire to enrich their eating habits.

Using Local Produce
Yashiro Elementary School in the town of Takahata, Yamagata Prefecture, is a pioneer in applying the slow-food concept to school lunches. The school began using locally grown produce in its lunches about 10 years ago and now operates a system in which a group of volunteers delivers fresh vegetables every day. Typical Takahata-made menu items include rice, milk, carrots, and onions, some of which are cooked as soup or used to make tartar sauce.
Encouraged by the success of this scheme, the town authorities extended the use of local ingredients to six other elementary schools in June 2002. Teachers have been impressed by the reaction of children. One said, "They now leave much less food on their plates and seem to appreciate the food more. Through direct contact with the growers, they have also become more interested in farming."

Kodomo no Mori ("children's forest"), a nonprofit organization in the city of Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture, meanwhile, is holding cooking classes for children - one for kids aged three to five and another for elementary school pupils. A member of the group said: "We hope that by having children cook rice, miso soup, and main dishes by themselves, they'll become more interested in food."

This echoes the philosophy of the Japan Slow Food Association (site is Japanese only), which has appealed to people to think more seriously about the food they eat, saying, "Food is the single most important foundation of human life. We should at least have a good idea of where things comes from before we put them in our mouths."

Enriching Children's Eating Habits
Most public elementary and junior high schools in Japan provide lunch for students. The meals are prepared in kitchens within the school or at school-lunch centers serving several schools. Children generally eat the lunches in their classrooms with their homeroom teachers.

This system began in the early twentieth century, when a private elementary school in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, started providing simple meals to children whose families were too poor to give them box lunches. With the support of the central government, this practice spread to the rest of the country, especially the large cities. Among the objectives were to feed undernourished children and to provide an extra incentive for parents to send their children to school.

School lunches were interrupted as fighting intensified during World War II but were relaunched in 1947, when elementary schools in large cities began to serve meals made with food aid - such as powdered skimmed milk and flour - from the United States and other countries. From 1952 school lunches were served in all elementary schools. In 1968 the Ministry of Education revised the basic guidelines for education and placed school lunch within the "class instruction" area of study. Since then, schools have been obliged to encourage students to adopt healthy eating habits. Meals had been served with bread since the end of World War II, but in 1976 the ministry also introduced rice-based meals, and this has added variety to the lunches served in schools.

As part of its official development assistance in the field of primary education, meanwhile, the Japanese government has decided to share the benefits of its education system with developing countries, such as by helping to set up school-lunch systems and offering expertise in early-childhood education. Thus in addition to educating Japanese children about the benefits of a healthy diet, Japan's school-lunch program could play a role in improving the health of children around the world.