Home and Consumer Studies (HCS) is a subject in the Swedish compulsory school that has sustainability issues clearly enrolled in its syllabus. Among other things, students should learn to make sustainable food choices, i.e.they should understand the consequences concerning health, finance and environment of what food they choose to consume. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about education for sustainable development (ESD) by investigating how students act in different decision-making processes during foodwork in HCS. Subsequently challenges when teaching sustainable food consumption are highlighted. The empirical material consists of video-recorded students (year 9) foodworking in an HCS classroom. Based on John Dewe ys philosophy, Practical Epistemological Analysis (PEA) is used to analyse how the students make choices and proceed in their work. The taste of food is decisive for how the students move on in their foodwork. Sustainability aspects are raised to some extent but do not have the same significance. It is concluded that it is complex to teach sustainable food consumption and possibilities to modify the teaching so that taste become part of the content when teaching sustainable food consumption is discussed.

In the school subject Home- and Consumer Studies, the curriculum includes knowledge about sustainable food consumption, i.e. the students should learn to make sustainable food choices. Previous research has shown that taste is an important factor when people choose what to eat. The purpose of this study is to investigate teaching about sustainable food consumption, by focusing on how teachers and students talk about taste during foodwork, more specifically what meaning that is construed in relation to taste and how this content may be understood in relation to different perspectives on taste. Video data from two classes of Swedish lower secondary school students is analyzed using pragmatic discourse analysis methods. The results show that taste is mainly used in terms of taste assessments and thus provide an understanding of taste as something fixed and unchangeable. A transactional perspective on taste is suggested as an alternative, working with taste as something changeable and reflexive. In this way teaching can be a part in students developing new taste experiences, which is crucial for wanting to change eating habits, or for learning to eat new dishes, and foods, which will be required in order for people to make sustainable food choices.