A questionnaire survey was conducted among all parents/guardians at four elementary schools in Osaka City with the aim of proposing various bean menus and creating opportunities to cook beans in the home. For the 422 respondents who were suitable for analysis, we examined the preferences and cooking motivations for six kinds of bean dishes made using dried or precooked beans and their relation to bean intake background factors. In the three kinds of Japanese-style bean menus made using dried beans, significant differences were shown between preferences and cooking motivations. Both the highest preference and cooking motivation were for minestrone made using precooked beans. On the other hand, regarding bean and vegetable salad, the preference and cooking motivation were quite low and significantly related to many bean intake background factors. The number of menus selected as bean dishes to cook was affected by the number of menus selected as beans dishes to eat, nutritional awareness concerning beans, and the frequency of eating beans. This result suggests that proposal of easy-to-cook and attractive bean dishes and education concerning the nutritional value of beans are effective means of encouraging cooking of beans in the home. The cooking motivation for bean dishes made using precooked beans was significantly higher than that for bean dishes made using dried beans in the group who had a lower intake frequency or did not like beans. Therefore, it is possible that bean dishes made using precooked beans might encourage home cooking in the group who rarely eat beans.

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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.

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We investigated new pre-university students in terms of their family life regarding their dietary habits, tastes and lifestyle.
In this study, the polarization pattern of lean versus obese students had been investigated. In particular, women tended to understand the suitable dietary habits for a lean body, whereas the men tended to be obese. Therefore, nutritional education about the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases is important. The previous considerations from their family had an impact on the dietary habits, tastes and lifestyle of new students, and their awareness about their own health. Furthermore, their awareness of their dietary habits was also improved after being engaged in cooking. The new student’s awareness of their dietary habits, tastes and lifestyle was related to the presence or absence of basic dietary education.
Therefore, the nutritional education of new students utilizes information from dietary balance guidelines. It is necessary to improve the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases, such as obesity. The understanding of suitable dietary habits may improve concrete dietary habits, and may require the implementation of cooking training and cooking classes.

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