Skip to content
1981
Creative Tastebuds 2021
  • ISSN: 2056-6522
  • E-ISSN: 2056-6530
file format pdf download PDF

Abstract

The global dietary transition is, among other things, marked by the prominence of softer, mechanically easy-to-eat foods and simple flavours. However, maintaining children’s tolerance to adverse dietary experiences, such as eating around bones, or consuming bitter vegetables, is an important contributor to nutritional balance and cultural preservation. Re-framing the capability to eat ‘difficult’ foods as an admirable, broadly useful, life skill would go a long way towards fighting against food neophobia or predilection for ultra-processed foods. In this article, I reflect on a sub-set of data gathered in 2018–20 from interactive food literacy benchmarking activities for 12–17-year-olds in Japan and Cambodia. Among the activities were measures of eating skill and tolerating adversity involving consumption of (A) bitter green vegetables and (B) whole fish. I find that social pressures lead children to derive social recognition from their food literacy and to make cognitive leaps about the utility of being able to face culinary adversity. This presents an alternative for casting adverse foods as personal, lifelong challenges rather than as momentary gustatory revulsion. It also presents an alternative approach to conventional food education, with the possibility for simultaneously measuring food literacy deficits and creating context for their resolution.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • The Japan Association for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (Award 17K12919)
© 2022 The Authors Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which allows users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the article, as long as the author is attributed and the article is not used for commercial purposes. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3
2022-11-01
2026-04-10

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/ijfd/7/2/ijfd.7.2.159_Feuer.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Baker, P., and Friel, S.. ( 2016;), ‘ Food systems transformations, ultra-processed food markets and the nutrition transition in Asia. ’, Globalization and Health, 12:1, n.pag.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Brooks, N., and Begley, A.. ( 2014;), ‘ Adolescent food literacy programmes: A review of the literature. ’, Nutrition and Dietetics, 71:3, pp. 158–71.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Buoy, R.,, Chhuon, C., and Thilsted, S. H.. ( 2009;), ‘ Fish is an integral part of the diet of the rural poor in Cambodia: Results from fish consumption surveys. ’, Asian Fisheries Science, 22:2, pp. 445–52.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Drewnowski, A., and Popkin, B. M.. ( 1997;), ‘ The nutrition transition: New trends in the global diet. ’, Nutrition Reviews, 55:2, pp. 31–43.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Hawkes, C.. ( 2006;), ‘ Uneven dietary development: Linking the policies and processes of globalization with the nutrition transition, obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. ’, Globalization and Health, 2:4, pp. 1–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Hemar-Nicolas, V.,, Ezan, P.,, Gollety, M.,, Guichard, N., and Leroy, J.. ( 2013;), ‘ How do children learn eating practices? Beyond the nutritional information, the importance of social eating. ’, Young Consumers, 14:1, pp. 5–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Højer, R.. ( 2021;), ‘ Yes I can cook a fish; effects of a five week sensory-based experiential theme course with fish on 11- to 13-year old children’s food literacy and fish eating behaviour: A quasi-experimental study. ’, Food Quality and Preference, 92, n.pag., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.food​qual.2021.104232. Accessed 13 October 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Højer, R.,, Wistoft, K., and Frøst, M. B.. ( 2020;), ‘ Play with your food and cook it! Tactile play with fish as a way of promoting acceptance of fish in 11- to 13-year-old children in a school setting: A qualitative study. ’, Nutrients, 12:10, https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12103180. Accessed 13 October 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Izumi, B. T.,, Pickus, H. A.,, Contesti, A.,, Dawson, J., and Bersamin, A.. ( 2015;), ‘ Serving fish in school meals: Perceptions of school nutrition professionals in Alaska. ’, The Journal of Child Nutrition and Management, 39:1, pp. 1–10.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Jaffe, J., and Gertler, M.. ( 2006;), ‘ Victual vicissitudes: Consumer deskilling and the (gendered) transformation of food systems. ’, Agriculture and Human Values, 23:2, pp. 143–62.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. MacLennan, R., and Zhang, A.. ( 2004;), ‘ Cuisine: The concept and its health and nutrition implications. ’, Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 13:2, pp. 131–35.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Martins, C. A.,, Machado, P. P.,, Louzada, M. L. da C.,, Levy, R. B., and Monteiro, C. A.. ( 2020;), ‘ Parents’ cooking skills confidence reduce children’s consumption of ultra-processed foods. ’, Appetite, 144, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.104452. Accessed 13 October 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Soon, J. M., and Tee, E. S.. ( 2014;), ‘ Changing trends in dietary pattern and implications to food and nutrition security in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ’, International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences, 3:4, pp. 259–69.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Vidgen, H. A., and Gallegos, D.. ( 2014;), ‘ Defining food literacy and its components. ’, Appetite, 76, pp. 50–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Wijayaratne, S. P.,, Reid, M.,, Westberg, K.,, Worsley, A., and Mavondo, F.. ( 2018;), ‘ Food literacy, healthy eating barriers and household diet. ’, European Journal of Marketing, 52:12, pp. 2449–77.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. York, R., and Gossard, M. H.. ( 2004;), ‘ Cross-national meat and fish consumption: Exploring the effects of modernization and ecological context. ’, Ecological Economics, 48:3, pp. 293–302.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Feuer, Hart N.. ( 2022;), ‘ Managing culinary adversity with food literacy: Children’s encounter with whole fish and bitter greens. ’, International Journal of Food Design, 7:2, pp. 159–70, https://doi.org/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3
Loading
Managing culinary adversity with food literacy: Children’s encounter with whole fish and bitter greens
International Journal of Food Design 7, 159 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3
/content/journals/10.1386/ijfd_00043_3
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): dietary skills; food education; neophobia; nutrition transition; vegetables; youth

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test