Abstract
We distributed a self-administered questionnaire regarding dietary life to 103 students (65 college undergrads and 38 graduate students) to investigate the effect of the food education they had received in junior high school. Our analysis of the questionnaire responses using Pearson’s χ2 test and Mann-Whitney’s U-test showed that food education using regional ingredients and regional dishes in junior high school was important to the students. A principal component analysis (PCA) with factor loading revealed three principal components (I : gender, regional concern, and experience in studying food in junior high school, II : belonging to college undergrad or graduate student and age, and III : regional knowledge). A path analysis demostrated that the practical ability of food was related to the first and third principal components. We also examined the olive fruits grown in Tokushima that are used as a teaching material in junior high school. We determined the acteoside contents of olive fruits treated with NaOH or NaCl2 by high-performance liquid chromatography, and we found that olive fruits treated with NaCl2 have a significantly higher acteoside content compared to those treated with NaOH. In addition, NaCl2-treated olive fruits could be preserved for a longer time compared to the NaOH-treated olive fruits. Therefore, NaCl2-treated olive fruits are more suitable as a regional-ingredient teaching material.
