The Chinese mainland’s pioneering “food and eating” exchange platform, the World Shiology Forum, is playing a part in the race to meet the 2030 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations (UN), a former senior official for the UN’s food standards body said while announcing that Hainan province will host the upcoming forum in October.

Tom Heilandt, former secretary of the influential FAO-WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission — a body jointly established by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization (WHO) — praised to China Daily ahead of Hong Kong’s inaugural World Brand Conference on Tuesday, where details of the upcoming 5th World Shiology Forum were announced.

The four-day forum, set to commence on Oct 28 in Hainan province, is expected to create a buzz with the first in a series of reports on Global Food Systems and Sustainable Development, while featuring a number of sideline discussions.

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Among those discussions will be a newly added subforum themed on the notion of building of a “longevity city”.

Hong Kong was strategically picked as the launchpad, Liu Guangwei, director of the Shiology Research Center at Renmin University of China and the architect of Shiology, told China Daily.

The city holds world-renowned credentials as a longevity capital, stemming largely from the city’s food and eating wisdom that mirrors Southeast Asia’s health ecosystems, “not least the widely practiced herbal cuisine, portion control, and nutritional coupling,” Liu said.

During the interview, Liu announced that he would propose to the special administrative region’s authorities that Hong Kong can burnish its “longevity brand”, and that he would hold talks with the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Wednesday concerning a joint research hub dedicated to making “longevity capital” stick as a name for the city.

Shiology — adopted from the Chinese character shi for food and eating — provides a systemic view of food-related issues amid a deep-rooted fragmentation of food cognition worldwide, Liu said.

A triple-lens science, Shiology integrates the eater — individual and group eating behaviors — the food — which encompasses the products, supply chains, and ecological impact — as well as what is known as “the food order”, a denotation of the institutional, cultural, legal, and policy structures of food governance.

Heilandt said he recognizes the notion’s broader-scale appeal, and spotlighted Shiology as a “vital supplement” to state-level international efforts in tackling global food sustainability challenges.

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While geopolitics might prevent global intergovernmental organizations like the UN and the WHO from asking certain questions essential for a more resilient food system, such social initiatives as the World Shiology Forum fill the gap, contributing to a collective wisdom, he said.

Addressing the press conference, Heilandt said: “Shiology helps us ask the right questions, gain deeper understanding, and transform food systems in support of the sustainable development goals.” It is a notion that boasts the potential to “empower everyone to live long, healthy lives,” he added.

The World Shiology Forum was initiated in 2017 and has since played a significant role in uniting global scholars and leading the development of this discipline.

Contact the writer at wanqing@chinadailyhk.com