Although aging, France has 12 million school children. They are called to live in a world that will necessarily be different tomorrow. To push back the specter of an unsustainable and asocial future, certain knowledge is essential. Let’s teach them to combine their curiosity and enthusiasm with an abundant dose of common sense. As such, food education cannot remain forever missing from school curricula. Two thirds of the children go to the school canteen four times a week. Would it be unreasonable to aim for 100% tomorrow and make it compulsory?
First motivation: health. If being able to feed oneself makes it possible to increase life expectancy, eating well, from childhood, offers the possibility of stretching longevity in good health. The first thousand days of the infant are essential. But not only. Constancy of food during the thirty thousand days of an average existence proves to be decisive. Nearly half of French people are now overweight. Nutrition education, both at home and at school, should not however be seen as a medical injunction. It must invite us to think about the long term and reason. Our best life insurance is not to be placed in the bank: it is located in our microbiota, sensitive to our daily actions and gestures. Tomorrow, the school canteen will teach about this investment in the future. Good food practice means living better and longer.
“The canteen will present the limits and solutions of sustainable development”
Second argument: the environment. How to explain the climate challenge, the requirement for sustainability and the transition to the circular economy without massively integrating the subject of food into the lessons? And as it is always difficult to introduce new subjects, at the risk of overloading schedules, perhaps it would be wise to exploit the niche of the school canteen to finally introduce food education into the courses! It is already the place where people raise awareness about the fight against food waste and the importance of seasonality for products.
Go further ! Let’s explain the geographies and their disparities, the future energy constraints and the innovations to be provided, without forgetting to highlight that consumption choices impact the planet and its ecosystems. But beware, let’s not fall into the excesses of the forced veganism type, as we know that many children find at school the food necessary for their growth, which the family home sometimes struggles to offer. Tomorrow, the school canteen will make inclusive and concrete sustainable development, presenting limits and solutions. Food is a combination of expressions and experiences.
Social Science Laboratory
Third point on the table: reconnect with the productive. Consumers have tended to forget that farmers and fishermen were the first links in food security. In the school canteen, alongside the cooks and the staff dedicated to the proper functioning of this universe of life, let’s give space to the virtues of work and give producers a role. Let them come and explain their jobs and how they do it, why they evolve and what their missions are, in short, in short, let’s highlight them and listen to them. Children can certainly appreciate an outing to the farm (it is often a more exotic activity than an in-depth case study), but they will be more receptive if they are told what is on their plate. , where the food comes from and why is it there that day. Tomorrow the school canteen will initiate everyone at the right price: good for their health, the planet and the producer. Food is a sum of participations.
Fourth reason to make the canteen compulsory: cultivate the collective! A child’s development certainly depends on the links he forms with others and the diversity of his relationships. Integration into a school is always favored by this invigorating mix. We should further cultivate the joy of eating in the canteen for the reunion it generates. Find friends from another class, meet new people, eat at the same time and share it together. The individualization of consumption, the break-up of meals throughout the day or the isolation that digital tools can bring are all questions about the future of living together. That the public authorities also commit to and fund school feeding with this in mind. Tomorrow the school canteen will be the social science laboratory. So democracy!