食農教育-素養．低碳．農事．環保

撰文、圖片：黃逸姍

生活驚奇．美食驚「嚇」
　　人類是種很奇妙的生物、人類的生活更是充滿著驚奇。從食物、科技、藝術…每天都有被突破的可能性，今天眼前發現的種種，明天可能又會呈現更新穎的面貌。其中，琳琅滿目的美食隨處可見，天上飛的、地上爬的、水裡游的，每一項都可以製成佳餚上桌供人品嚐、在美味的地圖悠游著。曾幾何時，食安問題爆發而引發出一連串的飲食革命，你看過色素、香精、檸檬酸及糖製造出的汽水嗎？你知道奶精是由植物油、糖漿、香料所組成的嗎？更遑論學童人手一包的洋芋片其實成份是洋芋粉(？)、鹽和油脂了。

　一開始看到學童拎著洋芋片當正餐、珍珠奶茶當開水喝的驚嚇，最終只剩下深深的無力感。讓大家看看教育部針對小學生體位及四年級學童齲齒的統計資料─

    多可怕的數據！居然有近1/3的孩子體位超標！
　　我們的孩子在充斥著速食的環境下已經成了「巨獸」，迷失在加工食物的假性美味裡。有鑑於此，人們從重口腹之欲開始關心吃得健康與否，加上全球暖化的危機，一場綠色飲食的運動正在學校中積極展開。

食育－行止有度．低碳飲食
　　古人雖有云：「食不言」。不過時勢變遷，「用餐」也是情誼交流的一種表示，三五好友各自暢言好不歡快，但現今的飯館，每到用餐時刻、高朋滿座之餘，大聲喧嘩、無酒肉不歡，席散時杯盤狼藉、剩菜滿滿；鏡頭再轉回來學校，每到午餐時刻，各種不同類型的用餐狀況此起彼落，這個學生不吃青菜、這個學生不吃飯、那個學生狼吞虎嚥、那個學生一邊吃飯一邊玩玩具…你說一個孩子是被家裡人伺候著吃飯的，聚集在一起落到學校一個班級就成了…「災難」（攤手）！
　　原本應該由家庭教育落實的飲食行為，因為現今社會父母親都忙，也許連共同用餐的時間都不見得有，自然而然地無法著墨在飲食教育這一環，幸好，我們還有學校教育（學校真是太偉大了，什麼都要包…）可以彌補。
　　「怎麼吃」其實是種品德形塑的教育手段，教導孩子不暴食不速食，無形中形塑孩子自我控制的適應能力；指導孩子不挑食不浪費，直接養成孩子知福惜福的感恩觀念。
　　另外，吃什麼其實是件頗有難度的事，常常會聽到「今天中午（晚上）要吃什麼？」本來一件很單純「維持生命」的事，因為人類文明的進步，「吃飽」已經不能滿足如今的人們，「吃巧」更是大多數人所重視的。所以山珍海味、珍稀奇饌，愈貴愈難得的，往往成了人們擺顯、大方的代名詞。細想，這些「高貴」的佳餚，背後代表的－是大量人力、時間、精神，間接地造成環境的傷害。
　　例如進口的生鮮食品，因為需要長途運送及保鮮，無形中增加了能源消耗（油料、電能）、也製造了環境污染。看著標榜著國外進口的MARK，真的代表著比較美味嗎？
　　現下更多了怎麼吃、除了食品安全外，我們更重視「吃」這件事能減少對地球的傷害。環保署也提出了五大低碳飲食法則、永續環境教育中心更是希望將這些觀念深化到民眾內心，接下來的特展就是以「綠色行動」來傳達低碳飲食的意涵。

農育－農事體驗．友善行動
　　從體驗中學習實為「教育有感」的好方法。近年來，新北市推動食農教育，涵括了可食地景、校園農場，小農夫假日市集…其中讓學生親自體會「鋤禾日當午、汗滴禾下土」的農事操作，實為教學行動研究的絕佳案例。
　　有一次帶著學生到萬里區的大坪國小挖地瓜，平常嬌滴滴的小女生，居然可以赤著腳踩在溼軟的田地裡，手上那一顆顆飽滿的地瓜和臉上那燦爛的笑顏，回來之後一向只吃炸薯條的孩子，居然喊著蒸地瓜好甜好好吃，嚇傻了平常苦惱著孩子偏食的家長；又有一次去了某農園體驗摘蕃茄，大大小小不同品種的蕃茄，學生拔得不亦樂呼，連看到蟲都只是好奇地多看了幾眼、有幾個膽大的拎起蟲子在我面前晃呀晃，讓我這個帶隊老師被學生嚇得心驚膽跳、卻還要裝成若無其事模樣。連農學市集的義賣活動，學生們都推銷的很興起，不斷地向我邀功全部賣光光。

    而透過一連串的農事體驗，師生了解農業生產、飲食與環境生態的關聯性，學習「友善耕作」的行動、札根「友善環境」的思維。最近興起的「有機3.0」即是希望透過友善環境的方式，發展有機農業的驗證方式。
　　但「友善環境」是什麼？究竟要什麼樣的行動方式才能算友善？以學校推動食農教育為例：從播種、耕種、施肥到收成，基本原則就是不使用化學肥料、不過度消耗土地，像萬里國小的蚓菜共生，就是將廚房剩餘的生質菜葉，透過堆肥壤裡的蚯蚓轉換成有機土壤，充分地利用了資源循環再利用的精神。

健康生活．環境永續
　  在2015年的米蘭世界博覽會上，揭發了當代飲食的五大危機－「糧食分配正義」、「剩食」、「食物安全」、「生態多樣性匱乏」以及「耕地不足」。有些問題看起來離我們太遠，但是只要透過每天一點小動作，就能減緩對環境的破壞。　
　　現代人生活忙碌，三餐不規律、為了方便，外食後的餐具、廚餘直接往垃圾桶一丟了事，卻不知這樣的行為其實對環境造成相當大的負擔。根據統計，目前全國垃圾，扣掉已回收的資源垃圾，有60%是來自於廚餘、剩菜…而這些看起來無用的東西經過再加工處理，可以轉換成堆肥和生質能源，能降輕環境的不必要的污染。
　　說穿了，食農教育其實就是環境教育，它涵括了「碳排放」、「氣候變遷」、「生物多樣性」種種環境議題。結合食育的認知、農育的技能，內化成護地球的情意，這就是永續環境、友善環境的立足點！

Food and Agriculture Education--Low-Carbon, Agriculture and Environmental Protection

Chang Kaos, Kaifu

Amazing Life but Shocking Foods
Human beings are marvelous animals. Human life, moreover, is filling with wonders. With daily-progressing possibilities, what looks cool today may be out of date tomorrow. Take our foods for example, have you ever thought about how these delicacies were made behind what you have seen. Since when, the awareness of food safety has been awoken and led the food revolution? Have you ever noticed the soft drinks made from pigments, essence, citric acid and sugar? Do you know that non-dairy creamer consists of vegetable oil, syrup and essence? Let alone those packages of potato chips in pupils hands are actually nothing but potato flour, salt and oil.
The shock of seeing pupils have potato chips as meals, pearl bubble tea as water turns out to be deepest helplessness at last.
Let take a look at the figure of obesity and tooth decay statistics among 4th graders.
Academic year 2014 Academic year 2015
Overweight and obesity Tooth decay Overweight and obesity Tooth decay
New Taipei City 29.84% 43.76% 29.30% 43.08%
Taiwan, R.O.C. 29.23% 43.36% 28.92% 42.88%
It is horrifying to see that nearly one third of the students were overweighed, obese and tooth decaying.
　　Our next generation has grown into “giant monsters” under this fast food flooding circumstances, straying in those artificial flavors of processed foods. Fortunately, people are eager to turn the tables. A green food revolution has thus begun.
Food Education—Manners of Eating Behaviors, Low-carb Diet
　　As the old saying goes, “No talking while eating.” Nevertheless, things changed. Dinning is a way of expressing hospitable friendship. It is quite common to see people talk loudly while having their meals and wines. And afterwards, scattered dishes and piles of leftover are here and there. Take a look at school scene. During lunch time, various types of eating behaviors are seen, proper or not. One may be picky, another devouring, still another absent-minded while eating. Lunch time in school can be disastrous.
　　The table manners should be cultivated at home. However, in the society nowadays, parents are always too busy to have meals with their families. As a result, table manners are gradually ignored. Fortunately, school education can bridge this gap (The school education in Taiwan is so great that it shoulders unnecessary responsibilities.)
It is actually a way of virtue cultivating to teach children how to eat. We teach them not to devour the foods to help model the self-control ability. To cherish the foods, we teach them to be neither picky nor wasteful.
　　It is of great difficulty to decide what to have for meals. We often hear that, “What do you recommend for lunch or dinner?” Eating was initially a behavior of life sustaining. However, as the progress of human civilization, we are craving for the sophisticated delicacies to fulfil our hunger. Those rare, hard-to-get foods represent one’s generosity and show-off. Take a deep look inside. These elegant delicacies may indicate the huge amount of labor, time and indirect harm to environment were the price to pay.
　　For example, the imported fresh foods of long food miles were energy-consuming and environmental-threatening. Are they really tasty just because of some imported tags attached?
　　We now anticipate that the harm to the earth can be reduced by emphasizing on EATING. The E.P.A. Taiwan has suggested five ways of low-carbon diets. The Sustainable Development Education Center is eager to promote these ideas to citizens. An exhibition of Green Action was held to convey the thoughts of low-carbon diets.

Agriculture Education—Agricultural Experiencing and Friendly Actions
　　It is a good way to learn from experiencing. Recently, New Taipei City Government has been promoting food and agriculture education including edible landscaping, farms on campus, and little farmer holiday market. Students can experience agriculture themselves.
　　We once visited Da-Ping Primary School, Wanli Dist. for yams harvest. Some pampered girls could step into the wet and muddy fields barefoot holding beautiful yams in hands with a charming smile. For those parents annoyed by children’s picking, they were surprised to see their chip-addicted children like these steamed yams. There was still another time when we went to a tomato farm. We saw various kinds of tomatoes on the farm. The children were happy to pick those tomatoes. Some even picked up some squiggly worms dangling in front of me. And I had to pretend that I wasn’t so scared of them. The students were also good salespersons advertising wholeheartedly the products in the charity sale.
Through a series of agriculture experiencing, both teachers and students were more aware of the connection among the production of agriculture, diets and the environment as well as learned to be friendly to the agriculture and the environment. The recently-mentioned “Organic 3.0” is a way of organic farming certification through being friendly to the environment.
　　How can we be friendly to the environment? Take food and agriculture education in school for example, the basic rules are using non-chemical fertilizer and not to exhaust the fertility of land. The farming method in Wanli Elementary School which earth worms were fed upon leftover compost from school kitchen and turned the soils organically is a good model of reusing the resources.
In Expo Milan 2015, five threats of modern diets were announced. Some may be far distant to us. But with our little effort every day, we can slow down the damage to the environment.
　　We are now leading extremely busy life with irregulary diets. For convenience, we threw the disposable tableware and the leftover into trash cans without knowing the damage has been caused. Apart from garbage disposal, sixty percent of the remaining estimated was leftover. It can be coverted into compost or biomass energy to reduce the unnecessary pollution.
　　In a word, food and agriculture education is environmental education. It includes carbon emission, climate change, biological diversity and related environmental issues. Integrating the cognition of food and agriculture education with farming education psychomotors, then internalizing them into the affections toward to earth protection, a standpoint of everlasting environment is thus formed.