School lunches around the world (pictorial essay)

[Bonobo]

BTW, I live in Japan and am on the PTA and school lunch committee.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/what-school-lunches-look-like-in-20-countries-arou

[brooklynite]

1. During Hurricane Irene, I was helping to run a shelter in a NYC Public School

They used the cafeteria and food supplies to feed the refugees. Beef macaroni in sauce, canned peached in a single-serving container, pint of milk and slice of dry white bread. Nothing was "cooked", just reheated or pre-packaged. Scary to think kids are still eating this stuff.

[Bonobo]

3. Here, everything is cooked fresh.

It is shocking.

We source local ingredients too. The shrimp, fish, octopus and squid is all from around our island. Everything cooked just like real food. It is inspirational. America could do it too.

I heard someone speculate that the current model of serving food untouched by human hands so to speak is a legacy from a time in the fifties or sixties perhaps when automation was so new and seemed desirable.

Now it is in the hands of corporations but something needs to be done. School lunch needs to be part of the educational curriculum and kids must be taught from an early age how to eat properly.

I am now reading a book called "In France, Kids Eat Everything".

[snooper2]

2. Didn't we already have this thread a while back and determine it was mostly bullshit?

[Bonobo]

4. I don't know. Why is it bullshit?

[Chorophyll]

5. I call a tiny bit of b.s. on this.

I've seen my kid's school lunches, and they're not bad in the least. Nothing is fried. Even the ubiquitous chicken nuggets are baked. All of the bread and buns are wheat. Salad, vegetables and fresh fruit are always available. In fact, there's always a "salad bar" option and some kids actually use it. There's no soda, and dessert might be a single oatmeal cookie.

However: we live in the suburbs of NYC. Not in the most affluent suburb, but one that is large and with a Latino majority in the schools. It's a liberal town, and our school budgets always pass. We have not suffered many cuts at all... yet.

The problem with school lunches is not "the American diet." The quality, or lack thereof, in American school lunches largely depends on the affluence of the school district. And THAT is a huge problem of inequality, which will surely not be addressed by our current Congress.

[Bonobo]

6. In those photos, there is a wide range even among the Japanese lunches.

Ours here is particuarlly good I think, but there is one pic int here that looks kinda sad.

Lunches can vary day to day as well.... so I don't think it is b.s.

[Chorophyll]

7. Well, I'm not sure what the point of the post is supposed to be then.

I'll just leave it at this: in the U.S., public school lunches vary in quality based on the income level of the school district. So the kids who already have everything they need get good lunches. The kids who have nothing get crap lunches. And that is a damn shame.