A sustainable world, an integral food education

Abstract

To ensure health and food security it is necessary to guarantee the sustainability of the planet. Sustainability, health and food security are intrinsically related since in order to eradicate hunger in the world and to have access to a healthy diet, it is necessary for the basis of the food production system to be sustainable, and conversely. A way to promote changes in this regard is food education which, offered from a young age and integrally, could be capable of fostering fairer ways of thinking and making food, both from the viewpoint of health and environmentally. In this sense, the article presents the results of qualitative research whose objective has been to understand and to analyze socio-anthropologically the conflicts and controversies that appear in the process of children’s food transmission and education. Concretely, the article presents the main socio-dietary conflicts that boys and girls mention having in terms of food consumption (what we eat), although we also study whether these conflicts, controversies and preoccupations suggest questions about other phases of the food chain such as production and distribution (how and why we eat what we eat). Likewise, we show to what extent those controversies and food conflicts revolve around the sphere of individual health, or also around other collective and environmental aspects. All of this allows understanding, on the one hand, what type of Food Education is being implemented in our present context. On the other hand, it offers the opportunity of proposing a more integral pedagogical model that educates people in the capacity to reflect and be critical about their own food system, so that they can promote changes themselves –at the social and political level– towards dietary practices and attitudes that are healthier and more sustainable. These practices and attitudes minimize the negative impacts on the environment and, consequently, guarantee resources for the health of future generations.