Today’s lunch
I’ve recently been inspired by two vocal advocates for healthy lunches and better food/cooking education for school children. The first is Jamie Oliver, who is using his recent TED Prize award to fight obesity in America.
The second is a teacher anonymously blogging as she eats her school’s lunch every day in 2010.
One of the most stressful times for me as a teacher in America was lunch time, of all times when I needed peace the most. I hated it because everyday my children got packets of sauce or dressing to slather on their food, which I had to open because their 5 year old hands were too small. I hated cleaning it off of them when they tried to open it by themselves, thinking that nothing about their lunch was made with children in mind. I hated being rushed, often not even finishing my own lunch. And I hated watching trays, plastic cutlery, napkins, milk cartons, and unwanted food thrown away, sometimes twice a day.
I hated that children were given food completely removed from a source and provider, and taught that that everything in the lunchroom is disposable. So when I moved to Japan, I immediately noticed the differences in the hoikuen (nursery school) lunch experience. I noticed table cloths, real plates, cups and utensils, children serving each other in their own classrooms, the secular blessing “Itadakimasu” said always before a meal, eating broccoli and finishing it, and rice, fresh fruit, and tea every day. The only frozen food I’ve eaten at lunch here is a frozen orange served as a dessert.
I respect what the anonymous teacher is advocating for so much, so I’d like to start posting one of my school lunches every week as sort of an international counterpoint to her school’s lunch program. I am not trying to suggest that the hoikuen lunch is perfect, nor best for American school lunch programs, nor that there aren’t American lunch programs much better than mine. However, for a little perspective, I want to share one way that children are fed in one school, in another country. The children’s lunches are just like my pictures only with smaller portion sizes. So for today’s lunch, I ate:
Tuna salad made with noodles, carrots, cucumbers, homemade, tofu burgers with green onions (I forgot to ask what else), broccoli, miso soup with konbu seaweed, mushrooms, green onions, and daikon radish, rice, and strawberries.
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Would you mind if I used some of your photos for my school lunch blog? I would of course give you photo credit with a link. Please e-mail me with your answer. Thanks.
February 24th, 2010 at 6:46 am
I found your website via fed up with school lunch blog. The two lunches I saw on your blog look beautiful. How much prep work is involved? Also, eating on real dishes and on a real tablecloth looks so nice and calming. Another question - do your students have recess before or after lunch?
March 18th, 2010 at 5:36 am
I applaud the school lunch blog but I must take issue with that giantic con of exaggeration by James Oliver. I don’t know what this “Ted Prize” is but will be checking it out because I’m suspecting it’s some kind of scam.
Frankly, it was chocked full of lies. He takes a basic truth — that food in America needs improving — and uses it to exploit his own propaganda and to force his own ways on millions.
First of all, that family he showed was far from typical. I’m a 52 year old American who has lived in two states and I have seen exactly one family that looked that one headed up by an atrocious irresponsible mother.
My six year old grandson not only can recognize a potato when he sees one but has requested broccoli.
The sugar in the milk was misrepresented unless he’s talking about chocolate milk which he didn’t indicate. Has he never heard of lactose? And he is counting on the wheelbarrow being shocking without most people picking up on that amount being five years’ worth. Gimme a break.
Cooking at home is done by almost everyone. Does anyone know anyone where fast food and prepared food garbage is all they eat? Even among young singles. There’s no crime in it being a now and then treat. The problem would only be if it was a main staple of the diet.
Eating local is nice but not wisest everywhere. Most of the US would not have access to citrus locally. It’s just too cold. Is he proposing a return to scurvy? Not my grandson, buster! I’ll tell you that. And that’s not even discussing the expense that all too many Americans just can’t afford.
Finally, he touts $6,000 for every school (school even, not school district) as something affordable when budget cuts have class sizes increasing.
I’ll also frankly find fault with him for not even mentioning food allergies which are quite deadly and on the rise.
Does the school lunch program need to be overhauled. Definitely. Hence, my cudos to the blogging teacher (who also blogged about his job being in danger due to budget cuts, btw). But this con artist should not be the one to do it or have a hand in it. There’s a reason he’s putting on such showmanship in this clip and I’m not just referring to the fact that this netted him a reality television show (personal financial gain).
March 25th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
mmm…tofu burgers!!!