Comments on: Japanese School Lunches: No Mystery Meat Allowed

By: ILuvFood

ILuvFood — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 02:50:00 +0000

OMG! I went to a private Catholic all girls school in the Philippines for 11 years and the cafeteria food was amazing. It’s not like how it is above, where the school has dietitians and plan the food but we had a lot of options to choose from and you just buy what you want. Some examples: different kind of dumplings, porridge, basic sushi (nothing fancy but still good), grilled chicken/porkchop, beef stroganoff, shawarma, local pizza and pizza hut pizza (which was pretty good), pesto/white sauce/red sauce pasta, hotdogs in a bun but with like chili and cheese and stuff, Filipino food, and then some more dishes paired with rice. We had a lot of fruit selection and vegetables too.

And then I moved to America to finish high school. I was sorely disappointed with the food that I packed my own lunch. The pizza or the fries or the pasta just wasn’t as good as the ones I used to have. I couldn’t understand why, if I was willing to pay for my own lunch, would we not have better options :| Sigh but I am well out of school now, although I still miss the food from my old school even until now. I’d love to eat the Japanese school lunches, they look yummy.

By: demonic-cookie

demonic-cookie — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:29:00 +0000

At my school the selection is pretty good. I live in a tiny town with about 500 kids in my school. Every day something new is available, I never buy it though because it really LOOKS gross. The chicken nuggets are better than fast food ones. They just put in a sandwich bar. More and more often fruit is served in a little cup as the side, I just had strawberries and cream today. But there’s still so much crap you can buy. If I ran a school food business I wouldn’t put a selection of 10 different kinds of chips and cookies right there for kids to buy.

By: dddd

dddd — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:28:00 +0000

most of my school lunch is ok except for the hamburgers there gray and it has fat on it

By: Ilze Botha

Ilze Botha — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 08:09:00 +0000

In my schools we never got lunch like this, not even the “mystery-meat” option :P we had to take our own food to school or buy at the tuck shop at ridiculous prices.

By: Jon E.

Jon E. — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:40:00 +0000

It’s so crazy that I just stumbled upon this article here, because my Japanese friend (we live in the U.S) and I JUST – and I mean JUST – had a conversation comparing and contrasting school lunches from Japan and the U.S. We even branched off into a much more frightening and generalized topic of how nutrition is viewed within each country by the majority of the public. I say more frightening because it really makes you realize how unbelievably, utterly disgusting we are as Americans. You could spend an entire twelve hours having a discussion on how much salt we overconsume, and its consequences which we are already seeing. That’s just salt. I haven’t even gotten to the FDA’s approval of a certain amount of drops of blood per gallon of milk, the pesticides we swim in and pretend we have no idea we’re consuming poison, or even the extra hormones we swallow or the artificial colors and preservatives . Oh, look at that, I’m rambling anyway…kinda hard not to once you really wake up with the issue of nutrition in the U.S. :-

Anyway, thanks for the article!

P.S: (Site-related question here): Is there a date written on the articles on Tofugu somewhere? I think my eyes are missing it.

By: Jon E.

Jon E. — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:32:00 +0000

Yeah, same here. (Eastern U.S) ; Food was absolutely dreadful in elementary school. slightly better in Middle, and then the best it could get while still being completely unhealthy in High School.