What the Japanese Get Right About School Lunches

I’ve watched with great interest several different videos about Japanese school lunches over the years and it never ceases to amaze me how organized, efficient and clean these schools teach the children to be, as part of a team effort. I’ve always been fascinated with their culture as a whole- very communal, hard-working, and altruistic. It’s a refreshing look at how the youth are being taught not just academic, but social and life skills. What an optimistic future for their country when operating on a level like this at the primary school level! 

Additionally, and something I’m always looking at, of course, is the food. As you’ll see in the video, there is detailed attention being paid to the variety and nutritional value of the foods. The school nutritionist places special emphasis on giving the kids foods they may have never tried before, foods that are all part of Japanese food tradition. It’s fresh and locally-sourced, unprocessed and well-balanced for these growing kids. I think that’s fantastic and would love to see if/how other countries are doing something similar. 

I haven’t been in schools for a very long time now, but the last I checked there was a real struggle to get real, un-processed food on the menu. I worked hard to bring freshly prepared, well-balanced lunches where many ingredients could be sourced locally or even in a newly-created school garden, but at the time the idea wasn’t so well-received. Maybe people weren’t ready for it at the time. I sure hope they are now. The kids deserve it. The future depends on their health and well-being and much of that starts with the encouragement of parents at home and their support of the schools to implement such types of school menus- no matter the country we’re talking about in this regard. 

Has your school implemented a healthy lunch menu? If so, please let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear all about it…