The Positioning of Shiology —— Making Explicit the Implicit “Shiance Knowledge System”
LIU Guangwei
（Research Center for Shiology， Renmin University of China， Beijing 100872， China）
Abstract: The ancient adage "Food is the paramount necessity of the people" encapsulates humanity's “five eater needs”：eating enough，eating with variety， food-safe eating, eating for health and longevity, and sustainable eating. These “five eater needs” embody the right to eat，and when such needs are not met, problems inevitably arise. Humanity has not yet solved the "five eating issues” as a whole， fundamentally due to the absence of a comprehensive disciplinary framework. In China, after solving the problem of "eating enough", to meet the people's demands for "eating with variety, food-safe eating, eating for health and longevity, and sustainable eating", relying solely on agriculture is insufficient, as agriculture does not cover the "five eating issues”. Only by establishing a discipline explicitly centered on "Shiology" can these issues be adequately addressed. Within the Graduate Education Discipline Catalogue (2022) issued by the Ministry of Education，there implicitly embodies a "shiance knowledge framework". Spanning four disciplinary categories of agriculture, engineering, medicine and management science, it constitutes a fundamental paradigm addressing the "five eating issues. This study undertakes a systematic upgrading of the implicit "shiance knowledge system". First it expands the disciplinary scope by incorporting economics, law, natural sciences and education into the original four discipllinary categories, thereby ensuring comprehensive coverage of shiance issues. Second it constructs a "Shiology Triangle Model" with eaters (demand), food （supply) , and shiance order （regulation）as the structural dimensions of the disciplinary system, thereby unifying its objectives. Third，it establishes eight disciplinary elements to endow the field with the essential attributes of modern academic disciplines, thus elevating it into an explicit and recognized discipline. Guided by the “Five Eater needs”, this research seeks to build an Interdisciplinary subject of Shiology, crossing eight academic domains, in order to address the full spectrum of shiance issues. By safeguarding the shiance interests of 8 billion people, it aspires to provide a global public goods and contribute to global governance.
Keyword: Shiance; Shiance Issues; Shiance Knowledge Framework; Interdisciplinary subject; Independent Disciplinary System; Global governance
The paper adheres to the traditional wisdom that "food is the paramount necessity of the people," establishing a discipline centered on "food" and upholding the scholarly attitude of "seeking truth from facts"—or, in this context, "seeking truth from shiance." Guided by the "Five Eater Needs"—eating enough, eating with variety， food-safe eating, eating for health and longevity, and sustainable eating—it aims to systematically enhance the implicit "shiance knowledge system" within the Ministry of Education's Graduate Education Discipline Catalogue (2022). By constructing an interdisciplinary framework spanning eight major disciplines, the paper seeks to better serve national development strategies, contribute to global public product, and advance the global governance of shiance issues.
The establishment of Shiology holds both academic value in holistically understanding shiance issues and practical value in comprehensively addressing them. It offers guidance for individual health and longevity while optimizing shiance order and civilizational paradigms for humanity as a whole. Given China's national conditions, food safety challenges cannot be adequately addressed through food science alone, public health issues cannot be resolved solely through medicine, and rural development requires more than agriculture. A comprehensive "shiology knowledge system" covering all shiance issues is urgently needed.
I. Core Conceptual Framework
To articulate the explicit establishment of an implicit "shiance knowledge system," it is essential first to clarify the connotations and extensions of its core concepts. These core concepts serve as the foundation for constructing shiology as an interdisciplinary field, reflecting its uniqueness and systematicness. As fundamental elements of the knowledge system, they not only embody its basic principles but also enrich other concepts with new meanings, generate new conceptual clusters, and systematically support the construction of its theoretical framework. These core concepts demonstrate the autonomy of the knowledge system and represent the "roots and soul" of building a shiology knowledge system in China. The development of shiology knowledge system inevitably relies on the support of such core conceptual frameworks.
(1) Eating: Putting food into the mouth, chewing and swallowing them (including sucking and drinking) (Modern Chinese Dictionary, 7th edition). It refers to the process of ingesting food through the mouth.
(2) Eatance: The term had not been been included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary, which refer to the phenomena and activities of ingesting food, including eating, drinking, and taking medicine.
(3) Eating Rights: The right of human beings to have access to food for their survival. This encompasses the right to adequate quantity, variety, and quality of food. Eating rights is the right to survival and serves as the foundation of human rights. Also referred to as "the rights to food".
(4) Shi: As defined by the Xinhua Dictionary, "to eat" or "something to eat". "To eat" refers to the act of ingestion; "something to eat" refers to the object consumed. "Shi" functions as both a verb and a noun, with the noun (food) being derived from the verb (to eat).
(5) Eater: The term had not been been included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. It refers to man and mankind from the perspective of eating needs. The eater is a dimension of cognizing the essential attributes of human beings, considering man and humanity from the perspectives of eating and its relation to individual survival and health, group harmony, and population sustainability.
(6) Food: The Modern Chinese Dictionary defines it as "edible substances (mostly natural)". Food refers to the substances that people can ingest and absorb to maintain survival and health, encompassing five categories: animal-based food, plant-based food, fungus food, mineral food, artificial food. Although artificial food have entered the human food chain, a conceptualization from the perspective of food has been lacking; Artificial food is an is an outsider and latecomer to the human food chain. Food includes substances ingested for satistying hunger and for treating illnesses.
(7) Eating Enough: This is fundamentally an issue of food quantity, ensuring the daily caloric and nutritional requirements of every individual are met.
(8) Eating with Variety: This is fundamentally an issue of food variety, ensuring the supply of a diverse range of foods such as grains, meat, vegetables, and fruits for every individual.
(9) Food-Safe Eating: This is fundamentally an issue of food quality, ensuring the safety of all food consumed by every individual, with particular emphasis on the safety of artificially processed food.
(10) Eating for Health and Longevity: This is fundamentally an issue of the coupling between the body and food. The physiological differences among individuals determine their unique dietary needs, including the quantity, variety, temperature, frequency, speed, and sequence of food intake. Only by fully meeting these individual needs and enhancing the coupling between the body and food can health and longevity be achieved.
(11) Sustainable Eating: This is fundamentally an issue of the sustainable supply of food. The primary threats originate from two areas: first, internal conflicts and wars within the human population; and second, ecological degradation caused by external pressures on the environment.
(12) Shiance Industry : The term had not been been included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. It refers to he social system formed by natural and legal persons engaged in “shiance”, including agriculture, food industry, catering industry, food-based health preservation industry and industry of maintaining shiance order , etc. The essence of the often-mentioned “integration of the three industries” and “sixth industrialization” is “shiance industry”.
(13) Shiance: The term is not included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. There is a word “shiance” in the ancient Chinese language, but it is rarely used. For example, “Nine Complaints from Chu Ci” : “Accumulating grievances and deep thoughts, my heart is so troubled that I forget about food affairs.” Here, “food affairs” refer to the basic necessities of life, such as eating and drinking. Another example is “ Annals of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Volume, Biography of Hua Tuo”: “Hua Tuo relies on his abilities and is disinclined to mundane affairs.” In this context, “mundane affairs” refer to do things or engaging in the work. The term "shiance" is adopted to comprehensively represent all objects related to "food." Shiance, refers specifically to the phenomenon and activities of human acquiring and utilizing food. Shiance includes not only the survival and health of people such as eating and drinking, but also the processes of obtaining food and maintaining the shiance order. Shiance is the first priority for human survival, and it is also a primary prerequisite for sustaining sustainable development. Judging from the long history of human development, shiance stretches back far more than 5.5 million years. It precede not only other affairs but also civilization, serving as the fundamental impetus and foundation for the emergence, development, and continuity of human civilization.
(14) Shiance Issues : The term is not included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. Shiance Issues are the difficulties and contradictions encountered by human beings in the process of acquiring and utilizing food, representing the gap between the current state of shiance and the eater needs. It is not only a issue of eating enough (acquiring food), but also the problem of eating well and healthily(coupling between the body and food). The human should not only secure enough food, but also eat healthily and maintain longterm sustainability and stability. Shiance issues are the primary threat to sustainable development.
(15) Shiance Knowledge System: The holistic framework of shiance cognition. It represents the systematic understanding of the objective reality of human shiance, which has evolved through three stages: fragmented cognition, block-based cognition, and holistic cognition.
(16) Shiology: The term is not included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary. A discipline that takes shiance as its research object, with the academic mission of promoting individual health and longevity, group harmony, and population sustainability. It is a knowledge system that reveals the objective laws of human shiance and addresses shiance issues; a knowledge system centered on the eater that comprehensively covers all food issues; and a global public product designed to solve human shiance issues.
(17) Shiance Order : The orderliness and continuity of human shiance behaviors. Shiance order is the basis of social order. Maintaining shiance order requires a combination of measures, such as shiance law, shiance administration and shiance economics. Shiance order is the prerequisite and basis for achieving sustainable development.
(18) The Four Unities Between Food and Medicine: Homology of Food and Medicine, Common Origin of Food and Medicine, Common Principles of Food and Medicine, Unity of Food and Medicine. The concept of "medicine" specifically refers to oral medication, including both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western pharmaceuticals, with a focus on the shared properties between food and oral medications.
(19) Shiance Diseases: The term is not included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary., also known as “eating diseases”. Shiance Diseases are caused by the consumption of inappropriate food or inappropriate eating methods, including under-eating diseases, overeating diseases, food-borne diseases, diseases from dietary imbalance, food sensitivity diseases and appetite deficiency diseases. Food diseases are named from the perspective of causes, which, compared with the previous naming from the perspective of symptoms, has a positive significance in disease prevention.
(20) Shiance Therapeutics: The dietary therapy refers to the practice of human using food and eating methods to relieve and treat diseases. The "Shiance Therapeutics" refers to the use of food and oral medication to prevent and treat diseases. Oral medications include oral traditional Chinese medicine and oral Western medicine.
(21) Body transformed from food: One of the shiology principles. It reveals the essential relationship between food and body. Food is the fundamental component of the human body. The principle of "body transformed from food" states that "human body is transformed from food, which includes bones, blood, organs, muscles, brain, skin, hair, and so on.
(22) Body and food coupling: One of the shiology principles. It reveals the essential relationship among individual health, food and eating methods. The principle emphasizes the individual differences in dietary needs. To achieve health and longevity through diet, it is necessary to couple with the body from seven aspects: food quantity, food type, food temperature, food cookedness, eating speed, eating frequency and eating sequence.
II. The Five Eater Needs and Eating Issues
Many of the world's problems arise from the failure to meet fundamental human needs. The ancient adage "food is the paramount necessity of the people" conveys humanity's dependence on food, which manifests concretely as the "five eater needs": eating enough, eating with variety, food-safe eating, eating for health and longevity, and sustainable eating. These five needs are universal and embody the concrete expression of the "eating right."
When the fulfillment of these "five eater needs" is obstructed, it gives rise to the "five eating Issues." These issues represent the totality of humanity's food-related challenges; they are both a problem of paramount importance and a vast, complex "shiance issues group." The "five eating issues" concern the fundamental interests of eight billion people, impacting human survival, development, and sustainability. They are problems we must confront directly—unavoidable and inescapable. Why has humanity failed to resolve these critical issues comprehensively? The reasons span numerous fields and aspects, but the root cause lies in the lack of a holistic understanding of the "five eating issues." This gap represents a deficiency within the existing disciplinary framework—namely, the absence of a knowledge system that comprehensively covers the "five eating Issues".
Today, eight billion people live on Earth, distributed across 195 countries and regions. The "five eating issues" manifest with significant disparities among these nations and regions (as shown in Figure 1). This figure categorizes the 195 countries and regions into four groups, reflecting both the objective differences in per capita food resources and the subjective differences in the governance capacity to shiance issues. This facilitates a macro-level understanding of the current state of humanity's shiance issues.
The reasons for these disparities involve both objective and subjective factors. As seen in Figure 1, the x-axis represents the per capita food resource availability, with the origin being the average value of per capita food resource availability. Values to the left indicate below-average availability, and values to the right indicate above-average availability. The y-axis represents life expectancy, with the origin being the average life expectancy of the humanity (8 billion people). Values above the origin indicate above-average life expectancy, and values below indicate below-average life expectancy.
Countries in the first quadrant have abundant per capita food resources and high life expectancy. Their primary issue is that their life expectancy is not sufficient (eating for health and longevity), and they are typically net food exporters.
Countries in the second quadrant have scarce per capita food resources but high life expectancy, indicating strong governance capacity of shiance issues. The longest-lived countries (e.g., Japan) and regions (e.g., Hong Kong) are found here, and they are typically net food importers.
Countries in the third quadrant have scarce per capita food resources and low life expectancy, suffering from severe hunger (eating enough) and weak governance capacity of shiance issues. They are also net food importers.
Countries in the fourth quadrant have abundant per capita food resources but low life expectancy, indicating insufficient coupling between body and food, and governance capacity that requires improvement.
From the "Four-Quadrant Map on Global Shiance", it can be seen that the universality and complexity of the “five eating issues” require an holistic understanding and global governance.
Figure 1 Four-Quadrant Map on Global Shiance
From the perspective of "Five Eater Needs," the challenges we face today extend far beyond the traditional concerns of grain production and agriculture—which focus primarily on food acquisition—to encompass issues of nutrition and safety related to health, as well as issues of order and ecology central to sustainable development. Viewed holistically, we see a landscape of paradoxes: food shortages coexist with massive waste, as one-third of the world's food is wasted annually—a quantity far exceeding the needs of the undernourished—and this wastage persists without effective governance. "Hunger" coexists with "overnourishment," and the population harmed by the latter now surpasses that affected by the former. Long-standing problems persist alongside emerging threats; while the old challenge of food shortages remains unresolved, new crises such as soil/water pollution and food safety breaches are intensifying. In reality, issues such as food production capacity versus population growth, agricultural development versus environmental protection, food processing versus eater health, and food distribution versus social harmony are not isolated phenomena. They constitute an interconnected, objective whole. Essentially, all these problems stem from the "five eater needs" and arise from the failure to adequately meet these needs. These issues are highly interrelated, complex and holistic, forming a "shiance issues group" comprising over 300 distinct yet interrelated issues[1].
In his address to the Fourth World Shiology Forum (WSF), UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that "Around the world, 780 million people are going hungry and more than three billion cannot afford healthy diets. Meanwhile, one-third of all food produced is lost or wasted. Unsustainable food production,packaging and transportation are feeding the climate crisis - generating colossal greenhouse gas emissions, using over two-thirds of the world's freshwater, and accelerating biodiversity loss." [2]. He has repeatedly emphasized, on multiple occasions, the complexity of humanity's "shiance issues group" and the difficulty of governing them. Among the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 13 are related to the "five eating issues" (as shown in Figure 2). From this, we can conclude that if the "five eater needs" are not met and these issues are not comprehensively and effectively resolved, sustainable development cannot be achieved.
Figure 2 SDG and Five Eater Needs
The first UN Food Systems Summit was convened in New York on September 23, 2021, signifying a shift in the focus of global scholars from the narrow domains of grain and agriculture to the entire food system. This broader perspective encompasses not only food security and nutrition but also global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty. The second UN Food Systems Summit further concentrated on issues like food waste, climate change, healthy diets, science and technology, and partnerships.
The connotation of the "food system" requires expansion. The traditional model of the food system is described as "from farm to table." However, in fact, the table is not the end of food; the human gastrointestinal tract is. Furthermore, the waste produced after food utilization should be returned to the farm, thereby forming an organic cycle. Viewed through the lens of the "five eater needs," the "from farm to table" segment focuses on food production and processing, addressing the needs for eating enough, eating with variety，food-safe eating. The "from table to stomach" segment concerns the coupling between food and human body, addressing the need of eating for health and longevity. The return of waste to the farm addresses the need for eating sustainability (as shown in Figure 3). A food system is, therefore, a circular system comprising food supply, eater utilization, and waste degradation. We must recognize not only the objective existence of food system and the holistic nature of the problems within it but also recognize the lack of a disciplinary system covering food system challenges.
Figure 3 Food Systems
An analysis of the "five eating issues" from their essential nature reveals that eating enough focuses on food quantity, eating with variety focuses on food diversity, food-safe eating focuses on food quality, eating for health and longevity focuses on body-food coupling, and sustainable eating focuses on harmony within and beyond the population. This demonstrates that these issues reside at a meso-level of complexity; their governance is not an insurmountably difficult challenge, nor are the goals of such governance unattainably distant.
Humanity has traversed 7,000 years of civilization, constructing a modern scientific system and achieving monumental successes in understanding the objective world. At the macro level, the theory of relativity allows us to gaze into the depths of the cosmos; at the micro level, quantum mechanics enables us to perceive the most minute details. Yet, in this meso-level domain of comprehensively meeting the "five eater needs," we have not yet delivered a satisfactory response.
The prerequisite for solving a problem is understanding it. The prerequisite for solving the "five eating issues" is understanding them holistically. Currently, our understanding remains at the fragmented stage and has not yet advanced to a holistic integration. Given humanity's present capabilities, we should deliver this response within the 21st century—meeting every individual's needs, facilitating a transformation of our civilizational paradigm, and advancing human sustainable development. We must not defer this critical task to the 22nd century.
III. The Implicitly Existing "Shiance Knowledge System"
The "Postgraduate Education Discipline and Specialty Catalog (2022)" issued by the Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as the "Catalogue") is an important component of China's education system, reflecting the structural layout and development priorities of various disciplines. It serves as the fundamental basis for universities to set up specialties, formulate enrollment plans, and provide career guidance, and it encompasses 14 disciplines (as shown in Figure 4).
Figure 4 Disciplinary Categories
Among the 14 disciplines in the Catalogue, apart from "09 Agriculture" which mainly focuses on domesticated food, there are also some "food-related disciplines" in other disciplines such as "08 Engineering", "10 Medicine", and "12 Management", such as agricultural engineering, food engineering, nutrition, and agricultural and forestry economic management. When these "food-related disciplines" are examined together with agriculture, it becomes clear that they form a "trinity" knowledge system covering eaters, food, and shiance order. This is an objective existence, but due to its implicit form, it has long been overlooked. However, its value is the same as that of explicit knowledge systems, which is to solve problems in a certain field.
Shiance and agri-activities are in a inclusive relationship. To facilitate readers' understanding, the implicit "agri-knowledge system" will be discussed first, followed by the implicit "shiance knowledge system".
1. The Agri-knowledge System Spanning Three Disciplines
Agri-activities refer to a series of phenomena and activities generated by humans around domesticated food. The agri-issues are the difficulties and contradictions encountered by humans in agricultural activities, and they represent the gap between the current state of agricultural matters and the demands of eaters. "09 Agriculture" in the Catalogue only focuses on a part of agri-activities, not all of them. The problems it addresses and solves are also only a part of agri-issues, not all of them.
(1) The Form of the Implicit Agri-knowledge System
As a leading discipline in an agricultural country, agriculture has existed since the beginning of university education in the late Qing Dynasty and has continued to develop and grow. In the "Undergraduate Specialty Catalog of Regular Higher Education Institutions (2022)" , there are as many as 47 tier-1 disciplines under agriculture. Besides "09 Agriculture" in the Catalogue, there are also two "agriculture-related" disciplines, namely agricultural engineering ("08 Engineering") and agricultural and forestry economic management ("12 Management"). Together, these three form a "agri-knowledge system" (as shown in Figure 5).
Figure 5 The Implicit Agri-knowledge System
Among them, "agricultural engineering" under the "08 Engineering" category uses the theories and methods of engineering to study agricultural machinery, equipment, and engineering to solve agricultural production problems. Its scientific system originated in the 1950s, and its main courses include mechanical principles, mechanical design, mechanical manufacturing, control engineering, engineering thermodynamics, hydraulic and pneumatic transmission, agricultural machinery and agronomy, agricultural machinery and equipment, and livestock and processing machinery.
The "Agricultural and forestry economic & management" under the "12 Management" category uses the theories and methods of economics and management to study agricultural and forestry economic activities and management activities. Since the 1950s, its discipline category has undergone two adjustments. In the "Education Specialty Catalogue", agricultural and forestry economic & management was classified under "03 Economics" (agricultural economics) and "09 Agriculture" (agricultural economics and management) before 1990, and was later moved to the newly added "12 Management" category in 1997.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that this implicit agri-knowledge system spans three academic disciplines, covering the mechanical, economic, and management aspects of agri-activities, and plays an unheralded role in promoting agricultural development.
(2) The Value of the Implicit Agri-knowledge System
Compared with the "09 Agriculture" system, although the "agri-knowledge system" only has two more disciplines, its scope of understanding agricultural issues has broadened, and its ability to deal with agricultural problems has been enhanced. By making full use of mechanical equipment, economic management, and other means, it can better solve agricultural problems, demonstrating greater social value than the "09 Agriculture" system. The implicit "agri-knowledge system" and the "09 Agriculture" system are in a inclusive relationship, and their research objects and problems addressed are different.
Agricultural economics and management studies agricultural policies, rural finance, and the industrial chain from the perspectives of policy and market, optimizing resource allocation, stabilizing the agricultural product market, promoting rural revitalization and farmers' income growth, and achieving sustainable agricultural development. Agricultural engineering aims to improve the labor efficiency of agricultural matters, through agricultural mechanization, intelligent equipment, and green technologies, enhancing the efficiency of laborers, addressing resource and environmental challenges, and promoting agricultural modernization through engineering technology. This implicit agri-knowledge system lays a positive and irreplaceable role in addressing agricultural issues.
2. The Implicit Shiance Knowledge System Spanning Four Disciplines
Shiance refer to the activities and phenomena related to humans obtaining and utilizing food. Shiance issues encompass all the contradictions and difficulties encountered in the process of acquiring food. Shiance are broader than agri-activities, and the shiance knowledge system is more extensive than the agri-knowledge system. The agri-knowledge system mainly addresses food issues, while the shiance knowledge system deals with all food-related issues, which include not only food issues but also eater issues and the order issues.
(1) The Form of the Implicit Shiance Knowledge System
Upon closer examination, the implicit "agri-knowledge system" in the Ministry of Education's "Catalogue", along with food engineering ("08 Engineering") and food nutrition ("10 Medicine"), constitutes a "shiance knowledge system". It spans four discipline categories (as shown in Figure 6), covering the three domains of eaters, food, and the order, providing a correct approach for addressing the complex "five eating issues”. Due to its implicit existence and lack of disciplinary status, it has long been overlooked by the academic community.
"10 Medicine" has always had a close connection with the shiance knowledge system. In the 1980s, "100402 Food Hygiene and Nutrition" was listed as a first-level discipline under the "10 Medicine" category in the "Undergraduate Specialty Catalog of Regular Higher Education Institutions (1986)". It belongs to the category of public health and preventive medicine. Around the year 2000, with the increasing attention to food safety issues, the "0955 Food and Nutrition" major emerged under the "09 Agriculture" category.
Figure 6 The Implicit Shiance Knowledge System
(2) The Value of the Implicit Shiance Knowledge System
The ancient saying "Food is the paramount necessity of the people" is not "Agriculture is the paramount necessity of the people" because agri-activities focus on food, while shiance focus on eaters. Agri-activities are defined from the perspective of food production, while shiance are defined from the perspective of eater needs. Agri-activities cover the 10,000 years of food domestication, while shiance cover the 5.5 million years of eater survival and health. In today's world, agri-issues focus on 2.7 billion tons of grain, while shiance issues not only involve 2.7 billion tons of grain but also the health and longevity of 8 billion people, world peace, and sustainable human development.
Based on the agri-knowledge system, the shiance knowledge system is expanded. The agri-knowledge system is centered on objects, while the shiance knowledge system is centered on people. Compared with the agri-knowledge system, the most prominent feature of the shiance knowledge system is that it covers eater, food, and the order, and its greatest value lies in having a disciplinary paradigm for addressing the "five eating issues”.
IV. The Interdisciplinary Shiology Spanning Eight Categories
The implicit "shiology knowledge system" in the Ministry of Education's "Catalogue" has a disciplinary paradigm for addressing shiance issues, but it still has three obvious shortcomings: first, it does not fully cover shiance issues; second, it lacks a disciplinary status; third, its internal logical system is not complete. Only by systematically upgrading it can its full potential be realized.
The basic upgrade approach: First, the research starting point should return from food acquisition to eater needs. People-oriented, with eater needs at the core, meeting eater needs is the sole purpose of constructing the shiance knowledge system; second, the research object should expand from food to shiance (eaters, food, and shiance order). In simple terms, it is to expand from "eating enough" to "eating enough, eating with variety，food-safe eating, eating for health and longevity, and sustainable eating", comprehensively understanding shiance issues and unifying the disciplinary goal; third, it should not be constrained by the number of interdisciplinary fields. The disciplinary scope should be determined based on the range of shiance issues, and the number of interdisciplinary categories should not be limited, with the principle of fully covering shiance issues. Shiology is an interdisciplinary field spanning eight categories, involving two-thirds of all 14 categories, breaking the conventional (2 or 3 category intersections), with the aim of comprehensively covering shiance issues. The basic methods for upgrading: First, establish discipline based on "Shi (eat+food)", that is, centering on eaters and taking covering all food-related issues as the fundamental goal; second, name first and second-level disciplines with the character "Shi" at the beginning, specifically, with "shiance" and "food" at the beginning, such as food processing science and shiance economics, etc. This will fundamentally solve the problems of narrow discipline connotations and incomplete coverage of issues； third， clarify the inclusive relationships and parallel relationships within the system， reduce overlaps and blanks, and form a complete discipline system.
1. Add 4 new discipline categories
Looking at the current 14 discipline categories, "09 Agriculture" is the discipline category mainly focused on food issues, and there are 4 food-related disciplines under the "08 Engineering", "10 Medicine", and "12 Management" categories. To comprehensively cover shiance issues, 4 new food-related discipline categories need to be added, namely "02 Economics", "03 Law", "04 Education", and "07 Natural Science".
(1) Under the "02 Economics" category, to establish "shiance Economics". Economics is a knowledge system that studies the optimal allocation and utilization of scarce resources. The "Shiance Economics" uses the basic theories of economics to study the rational allocation and utilization of human food resources and reveal the objective laws therein. The current "Agricultural and Forestry Economics & Management" under the "12 Management" category contains both economic and management content， with economic content placed under the management category. Due to classification defects and inherent contradictions in the theories, there are obvious differences and significant variations in the construction of agricultural and forestry economics and management disciplines in reality [5]. The first step in upgrading the shiance knowledge system 2.0 is to separate its economic content from "Agriculture and Forestry Economic & Management" and incorporate it into the category of "08 Economics", establishing a new discipline called "Shiance Economics". This discipline studies shiance economic issues, reveals the objective laws of shiance economy, and addressesvshiance economic problems. For instance, it examines the contradiction between food's dual attributes as a necessity for survival and a commodity in economic operations, as well as the issue of "low grain prices harming both farmers and consumers" caused by suppressing grain prices.
Meanwhile, the original discipline of Agricultural and Forestry Economics & Management will be renamed to "Shiance Management." This discipline will employ fundamental management principles to study human behaviors in managing shiance affairs. It will encompass sub-fields such as Government Shiance Management, Corporate Shiance Management, and Social Shiance Management, aiming to uncover the objective laws governing shiance and provide comprehensive solutions to related management issues. For instance, to address the current fragmented approach to shiance governance—it is proposed to promote institutional reform. This would involve establishing a "Ministry of Shiance" or a "Ministry of Shiance Administration" with comprehensive oversight over all shiance issues, thereby enhancing the nation's capacity for shiance governance [6].
(2) To Establish "Shiance Law" under the Category "03 Law". Law is a knowledge system that uses legal texts to correct inappropriate human behaviors. Shiance law applies the basic tenets of legal science to study the correction of inappropriate behaviors related to shiance and to reveal the objective laws governing them. While numerous existing laws are related to shiance, they are fragmented across different sectors such as agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, the shiance industry, the catering industry, and dietary therapy. These laws are segmented and operate in isolation, leading to redundancies, conflicts, and gaps. The lack of a holistic and systematic legal framework for shiance prevents the comprehensive and efficient correction of inappropriate shiance behaviors and undermines the safety of the people's eating practices. Therefore, it is necessary to establish "shiance law" under the category "03 Law" to holistically study the legal institutions and development related to shiance, reveal the underlying objective laws, comprehensively address inappropriate shiance behaviors, reduce internal friction, improve efficiency, and construct a unified National Shiance Code. This will promote a virtuous cycle in the shiance industry and advance its high-quality and sustainable development.
(3) To Establish "Shiance Education" under the Category "04 Education". Education is a knowledge system that studies and reveals the laws governing the imparting of knowledge. The connotation of shiance education includes two aspects: first, education aimed at shiance industry professionals (vocational education), which targets imparting knowledge and skills for food acquisition; second, education aimed at eaters (general education), which targets imparting the concepts and methods for eating to achieve health and longevity. "Shiance education" specifically refers to the general education for eaters. Shiance education applies the basic principles of educational science to study the imparting of knowledge on how to eat for health and longevity. Establishing "Shiance education" under the category "04 Education" will facilitate the study of the characteristics of food education and reveal its underlying laws. Promoting the formulation of the National Food Education Development Outline is a matter of fundamental interest to every citizen. It holds both immediate practical significance and far-reaching historical significance for improving the health standards of the nation and advancing the implementation of the Healthy China strategy [7].
(4) To establish "Food Ecology" and "Eatology" under the Category "07 Natural Science". Natural sciences constitute a knowledge system focused on natural phenomena, material structures, and the laws of motion, encompassing disciplines such as ecology and biology. Ecology studies the interrelationships between organisms and their environment. Establishing "food ecology" as a sub-discipline would apply the fundamental principles of ecology to examine the relationship between human food and the environment, understanding the natural environmental system and the maternal systems that produce food from the perspective of shiance. The relationship between human food systems and the Earth's ecosystems is inherently interdependent. However, modern societal development, particularly since the industrial revolution, has increasingly intensified human interference in the natural environment. The primary substrates for food growth (such as soil and water bodies) have suffered severe pollution and degradation, threatening the sustainable supply of human food. The establishment of "Food Ecology" is therefore urgent. It would research issues related to food ecology, reveal the objective laws governing it, solve related problems, and safeguard the sustainable development of food systems.
Biology is a knowledge system that studies life phenomena and the laws of life activities—an applied science focused on utilizing the laws of life to serve humanity. Establishing the "Eatology" within biology would apply its basic principles to study how humans can eat for health and longevity, revealing the objective laws involved. At first glance, establishing a "Eatology" might sound humorous; some may question whether eating even requires formal study, as everyone eats. However, achieving correct eating—eating for health and longevity—is not simple. While factors like genetics, environment, exercise, mood, and temperature are closely related to health and longevity, eating is a core determinant. The relationship between eating and health/longevity manifests in five aspects: 1) constituting body, 2) satiating hunger, 3) preventing disease, 4) treating disease, and 5) causing disease. These five relationships underscore the central role of eating in health and longevity (as shown in Figure 7). Raising global average life expectancy to 100 years and addressing insufficient longevity require a robust knowledge system about eating. Establishing the "Eatology" would involve studying the positive effects of eating, preventing eating-related harm, fostering a comprehensive understanding of oneself and food, revealing the objective laws between eating practices and health/longevity, and promoting the development of a Dietary Guide Dial [8] tailored to national conditions and public needs. The spleen and stomach are the foundation of postnatal life; eating can cause diseases but can also prevent and treat them. Building a scientific system for eating can reduce disease incidence, lower household medical expenses, alleviate the burden on national healthcare systems, decrease the consumption of medical resources, and improve overall social operational efficiency.
Figure 7 The Core of Health
2. The Eight Essential Components for Establishing the Discipline of Shiology
Guided by the traditional Chinese wisdom that "food is the paramount necessity of the people" and "food is the foremost element of governance," this paper is grounded in the scholarly philosophy of "seeking truth fromshiance and establishing a discipline based on food." It adopts the "five eater needs” as its orientation to systematically upgrade the originally implicit "shiance knowledge system," refine unified scientific objectives, and transform it into a modern interdisciplinary field.
To construct a modern disciplinary system, it must possess the common elements of such systems. An in-depth examination reveals eight factors universal to all modern disciplines: name, object, definition, mission, terminology, principles, structure, and system. These can be referred to as the "Eight Essential Components of a Discipline."
(1) Name: The discipline is named Shiology. Its English designation is "Shi-ology." As no direct equivalent to "shiology" exists in English, the author creates this new term by combining the Chinese "Shi" with the English suffix "-ology."
(2) Object: The object of Shiology is shiance, which encompasses all human activities and phenomena related to acquiring and utilizing food. This includes three domains: the eater, the food, and the order. Viewing human shiance issues from the holistic perspective offers a more systematic approach. It replaces partial understandings with a comprehensive cognition and substitutes fragmented insights with an overarching view, thereby enabling the holistic resolution of all issues connecting humans and food.
(3) Definition: The definition of Shiology can be established along four dimensions: essence, function, relationship, and occurence. From the essence perspective, shiology is a knowledge system that reveals the objective laws of shiance. From the functional perspective, shiology is a knowledge system that studies and solves shiance issues. From the relationship perspective, shiology is the science that studies the mutual relationship and rules between humans and food. From the occurence perspective, shiology is a knowledge system that studies the genesis, evolution, and objective laws of shiance behaviors [9].
(4) Tasks: Shiology has three core tasks: To study the food acquisition and its relationship with the human body, aiming to extending lifespans of individuals. To investigate the relationship between food resources and eaters needs, aiming to reduce social conflicts and wars, thereby maintaining social harmony, stability, and long-term peace. To examine the relationship between human shiance and ecology, aiming to ensure the sustainable development of the humanity.
(5) Terms: The core terms of Shiology consists of four groups: the Shiance Group, the Food Group, the Eater Group, and the Eating Group. Shiance refers to phenomena and activities where humans obtain and utilize food. Food encompasses any edible substance by humans, including natural and artificial foods, beverages like water, and oral medications. Eater refers to man and mankind from the perspective of eating needs. Eating denotes the process by which humans ingest food. Under these four core conceptual groups, there are over 90 concepts to Shiology [10].
(6) Principles: Body Transformed from Food, Body-Food Coupling, Eating Can Cause Disease, Eating Can Cure Disease, Five-Sense Aesthetics, Shiance Breeds Civilization, Shiance Triangle, Shiance Priority, Shiance Behavior Follows Food Ecosystem and Food Converting System [11].
(7) Structure: The framework of Shiology consists of the Eater (demand), Food (supply), and Shiance Order (regulation), collectively referred to as the "Shiology Triangle" [12] (as shown in Figure 8).
Figure 8 Shiology Triangle
(8) System：The system is formed through the integration of multiple disciplinary categories, including 09 Agriculture, 02 Economics, 03 Law, 04 Education, 07 Natural Science, 08 Engineering, 10 Medicine, and 12 Management Science (as shown in Figure 9).
Figure 9 Shiology System
V. Conclusion
Currently, global shiance face increasingly severe challenges: the coexistence of hunger and waste, frequent food safety incidents, a surge in diet-related diseases, and continuous ecological degradation. Fragmented traditional research is inadequate, leading to industrial inefficiency and resource misallocation. For instance, increased agricultural production may exacerbate ecological damage, food processing can pose health threats, and grain price suppression creates new dilemmas. Therefore, constructing the discipline of Shiology is not merely an academic pursuit but an urgent necessity for addressing practical problems such as food security, public health, and the climate crisis.
This study proposes a systematic upgrade of the implicitly existing knowledge system of food affairs within the Academic Discipline Directory, aiming to construct an interdisciplinary shiology centered on the eater. Its theoretical value lies in: 1) systematically revealing, for the first time, this implicit knowledge system within the Directory, clarifying its interdisciplinary nature and internal logic; 2) innovatively proposing the "Shiology Triangle" theoretical model, integrating previously dispersed food-related research into a unified cognitive framework; and 3) elucidating ten fundamental principles of shiology, laying the groundwork for a meta-theory of shiance research. These theoretical innovations advance the study of shiance issues from experiential and partial understanding towards systematic and holistic cognition.
In terms of practical value, the research holds significant implications for policy-making. Shiance Law supports a National Shiance Code; Shiance Economics shifts focus from grain to food and survival commodities; Shiance Management supports institutions like a "Ministry of Shiance Industry"; Food Ecology promotes sustainable policies; Shiance Education aids the Healthy China strategy.
As an interdisciplinary field, the core value of shiology lies in its systematic approach to addressing humanity's "five eating" issues, meeting the "five eating" demands, and filling the gap in the holistic understanding of food affairs within the existing disciplinary system. Compared to existing interdisciplinary fields, shiology has two distinctive characteristics: First, it integrates eight major disciplinary categories, far exceeding the scope of typical interdisciplinary studies, which is necessary given the breadth and complexity of shiance issues. Second, its interdisciplinary structure follows a "1+7" model: among the eight integrated categories, one serves as the foundation—09 Agriculture—while the other seven participate in the form of sub-disciplines within the Shiology framework.
Although traditional disciplines like Agriculture, Engineering, and Medicine partially address food-related issues, they are confined to their specific domains, unable to fully encompass the complexity and totality of shiance. By integrating knowledge from eight disciplinary categories, Shiology constructs a comprehensive theoretical framework covering the Eater, Food, and the Order. Its value extends beyond solving problems of individual health and social harmony; it aims to promote a paradigm shift in human civilization and emerge as a public product with significant value for global governance.
In an official response dated August 31, 2024, to Proposal No. 04841 of the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the Ministry of Education stated that it supports degree-granting institutions with autonomous authorization to establish Shiology as a first-level interdisciplinary science based on their individual conditions. It also supports degree-granting units in autonomously setting up secondary-level interdisciplinary science focusing on shiance research. This places the development of the shiology discipline in a position of significant importance. Future disciplinary development should proceed in the following three key directions:
1. Basic Theory: Refining the methodological system of shiology, particularly by introducing quantitative research methods. This includes developing quantitative models for the "body-food coupling" principle and establishing assessment indicator systems for shiance issues. Conduct empirical validation of Shiology principles. For example, investigate the "body-food coupling" principle through research on the etiology of chronic diseases. Deepen the theoretical foundations of sub-disciplines within Shiology, especially the theoretical construction of newly proposed fields under existing categories, such as Food Ecology and Shiance Law.
2. Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Establishing dedicated interdisciplinary research platforms for shiology to foster in-depth dialogue between fields like Agriculture, Medicine, Law, and others. Developing unified research paradigms and technical standards to enhance the comparability and replicability of research outcomes. Constructing specialized databases for Shiology, integrating multi-source and heterogeneous data related to shiance. Promoting technological applications, such as developing AI-based personalized dietary systems and sustainable food production technologies.
3.Policy Application: Explore pathways for applying shiology theory to food safety regulation frameworks. Develop national healthy dietary guidelines based on the established principles of shiology. Conduct policy simulation and evaluation for sustainable food system development. Enhance policy coordination and explore legislative pathways for a potential National Food Code and mechanisms for global food affairs governance.
In summary, as an emerging interdisciplinary field, the shiology theoretical system requires continuous refinement and development through ongoing research. Disciplinary construction must be preceded by textbook development. Guided by the supportive policies of the Ministry of Education, it is imperative to actively promote the compilation of textbooks at the postgraduate, undergraduate, and vocational levels, thereby laying a solid foundation for training teaching faculty across all tiers. It is hoped that through the collective efforts of more scholars, Shiology will evolve into a truly systemic discipline capable of addressing humanity's shiance issues, contributing significantly to individual health, social harmony, and sustainable development. Future research should adhere to the principle of integrating theory and practice, deepening theoretical exploration while emphasizing the translation and application of research findings, enabling shiology to better serve the global shiance governance.
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