Four-legged chickens

In a book published last year titled "Shoku wo Kangaeru" ("Thinking about Food"), plant geneticist Yoichiro Sato describes his surprise when told by an elementary school teacher that many children nowadays draw chickens with four legs. Impossible, he thought. On second thought, maybe not. He tried an experiment with his own university students. He had them draw pictures of chickens. Sure enough, some of them were four-legged.

"In the past," Sato writes, "this could not have happened." In the past, kids raised chickens and caught fish. They knew life, death and food in a way that few of today's children do. Adults aren't much better. "Almost no one in Japan today raises and grows all their own food. Many raise or grow none of it."