Food in school curricula ?

In this fourth and final part, Olivia Grégoire comes back to her proposal of learning food at school. Real source of social inequality, parents don’t always have the knowledge to educate their children to eat well. As a matter of common sense but above all as a matter of public health, obesity affects one French out of two and costs more than 10 billion euros to social security. Cooking classes at the high-school have already been experimented since 2013 with the University of Poitiers. A methodological guide has even been available on the DRAAF website since 2019.

What if food was part of basic knowledge among reading or counting ? Learning the seasonality and cooking basics might make the world better, what do we have to lose by trying ?

« I think there is a huge social taboo around food. I am very attached to this subject because I have the good fortune to be a mother. Mine didn’t like cooking at all, but my grandmother did a lot of it and she taught me that carrots and grated cabbage make coleslaw with an egg, oil and a little mustard. My grandmother, very young, around 5 or 6 years old, took me by the hand and explained to me how in Levallois-Perret, we could make a deal for the week with 50 francs. She was not rich but on the other hand she explained to me that even a small piece of fish, of collard or lean, with a little butter, a little salt, a little spice, you could make something nice. I had that chance. I know not everyone has.»