School Lunches in Different Countries

Whether school lunches are free or not varies from country to country, but even in the same developed country, some countries provide free school lunches, some provide low-priced lunches, and some simply don't provide school lunches at all.

Canada and Norway bring their own meals

In Canada, there is no national school lunch system. Parents of Canadian elementary school students usually make meals and have their children bring them to school, or have their children come home to eat at lunchtime. Norway also does not have a national school lunch system, and all Norwegian students bring their meals to school. Also, in Norwegian schools, lunch time is only 30 minutes and all students eat lunch in the classroom.

Sweden Finland offers free lunches

Since 1973, Sweden has offered free lunches in the form of a buffet at primary and lower secondary schools. In Finland, free lunch has been available to all primary and lower secondary school students nationwide since 1948.

Low-priced lunches in the United States and France

The United States has offered free or low-priced lunches to elementary and middle school students in the nation's public and some private schools since 1946, and today, more than 30 million U.S. students consume school lunches as well as breakfast every day. In France, students pay half the price for lunch, with the school covering the other half of the cost.

Japan introduced free lunches for elementary schools in 1952, and junior high school students were included in 1954. Today, 90% of elementary school students and 82% of junior high school students in Japan eat school lunch, paying 250 yen to 300 yen per person for materials.

India was one of the first developing countries to offer free lunch to students, and the free lunch program was introduced in 1925. Today, free lunch is available to students in Indian public schools, especially in aided schools.

French Schools with Nutritionists

In France, famous for its cuisine, lunch is considered the most important meal of the day. Students can eat at school or at home. School lunches are usually buffet-style and last one to two hours. 2001 saw the French government develop new nutritional guidelines for school lunches, which stipulate that school lunches must be healthy, hygienic and well-balanced, with very little fat, and that each meal must contain vitamins and minerals. Many schools employ their own nutritionists, who work with parent committees to ensure that the lunches are healthy and balanced.

A school buffet typically consists of five courses: an appetizer, a salad, a main course, a cheese plate, and a dessert. Each meal is accompanied by bread and water. In France, vending machines selling fast food and soft drinks are banned in primary and junior high schools; and schools never cater to students' preferences for junk food such as hamburgers.

Schools in the UK serve junk food

Public school lunches in the UK are often contracted out to sell fried fast food, such as chips, nuggets, pizzas and pies, and other junk food. To many Brits, their student lunches are nothing short of scandalous.

In the United States, the government has set specific dietary standards that student lunches must meet. The standard states that no more than 30% of the calories in each lunch can come from fat, and no more than 10% from saturated fat. However, some U.S. nutrition experts say the ingredients the USDA purchases for student lunches are among the worst from a nutritional standpoint.

In Japan, the variety of student lunches on a given day is the same in all schools across Japan, and the menu is developed by a nutritionist and changes daily. Today, in Japan, school lunch staples are bread or rolls, and entrees range from a variety of Asian delicacies such as cold noodles and mapo tofu to Western flavors such as spaghetti and seafood gumbo.

The safety of school lunches has always been a major concern for parents. In the United States and Japan, where school lunches have been practiced for more than half a century, school lunch safety incidents are often a media hotspot.

Japanese parents worried about nuclear radiation

In February 2011, a broccoli salad at a high school in Hokkaido, Japan, put down more than 1,500 students, teachers, and staff. An investigation found that the salad had been contaminated during its preparation. In the same year, radioactive material was found in beef for lunch at a school in Kanagawa Prefecture after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, worrying parents of students. In Tokyo, many Japanese parents submitted a joint petition to the government asking schools to conduct special safety checks on student lunches.

In the U.S., some media outlets have found, after unannounced visits to some school cafeterias, that dead rats are under the kitchen counters, cockroaches come and go on the dirty floors, and the utensils used by children to eat are not cleaned. Some statistics show that there have been 300 food safety incidents in American schools, involving 16,000 students. These reports and incidents have prompted the U.S. government to take steps to raise safety standards for school lunches and strengthen the management of school lunches.

India has a good safety record for student meals

It is worth noting that as a developing country, India has a very good record as far as the safety of school lunches is concerned, despite the high number of accidents in areas such as railroad safety.