While the promotion of healthy and sustainable eating habits in early childhood represents a major public health concern, food literacy remains insufficiently and inconsistently integrated into preschool educational practices. This literature review aims to examine teaching practices that support the development of food literacy among children aged 4 to 6 years (functional, relational, and systemic competencies), with particular attention to sustainability education, environmental awareness, and children’s under-standing of food systems, in alignment with a developmental approach. The methodology is based on the PRISMA protocol recommendations to ensure rigor and reproducibility in the selection of the literature. A thematic analysis of 21 scientific articles reveals a pre-dominance of practices centered on structured, experiential activities oriented toward behavioral objectives. These practices primarily mobilize functional competencies and, to a lesser extent, relational ones, while the systemic dimension—including understanding food origins, resource preservation, food waste, and the environmental impacts of food choices—despite being essential to education for sustainable development, remains marginal. Moreover, the findings highlight a limited consideration of preschool-specific educational contexts, particularly free play, daily routines, and spontaneous interactions, de-spite their potential to foster eco-citizenship and meaningful engagement with sustainability issues through authentic daily experiences. These observations point to an imbalance in teaching practices, characterized by a predominance of the pedagogical pillar at the expense of a more integrated articulation of the didactic and relational dimensions. They underscore the need to develop more coherent, contextualized, and reflective teaching practices in order to support comprehensive, critical, and sustainable food literacy grounded in children’s lived experiences and connected to the broader goals of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

Isabelle Deshaies, Crystel Bizier, Marilène Deshaies, Élaine Thiffault. High-quality Practices to Support Food Literacy in Preschool Education: A Literature Review. Frontiers in Educational Research (2026), Vol. 9, Issue 7: 1-21. https://doi.org/10.25236/FER.2026.090701.

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