Foreign journalists from Japan and foreign media for long-term foreign visitors to Japan introduce the excellence of Japanese school lunches, Japanese culture and food education.
There is an article from the United States that discusses Japan from the point that it has a “full school meal system”. This is a blog post of “The Atlantic City Lab” titled “Another country is embarrassed by Japanese school lunch”.
In fact, at the same time as this article was published, the United States is considering reducing the budget for “school meals for children in low-income families,” which places importance on giving children a healthy diet It is in great contrast with Japan. While the United States claims that “providing meals for children does not provide sufficient evidence to improve academic performance,” Japan consistently believes in the importance of providing homemade meals to children. It is a country.
 Photo: Japan Inside
94% of Japanese schools provide more than 10 million elementary and junior high school students. Japanese lunches are the opposite of a warm cafeteria lunch. Every day, the school cooking staff prepare the food from scratch, and the vegetables grown on the school grounds and cared for by the students are the ingredients of the daily menu. This method allows children to learn “desirable eating” from an early age
"Special teacher" of food education and nutrition teacher
One of the best things about Japanese school lunches is that lunchtime is considered “education time” rather than “break time”. Lunch break is a time to teach children important skills such as meal arrangement, table manners and cleaning. The Japanese government takes seriously its responsibility to teach children about desirable eating habits. Mimi Kirk, the author of “Atlantic City Lab”, wrote:
“In Japan, there is a term for food and nutrition education called“ Shokuiku ”. Since the number of children with eating disorders increased, the Japanese government enacted a law on food education in 2005, and schools became children. In 2005, the government set up a policy to place “nutrition teachers” in the schools that are responsible for nutritional guidance and management. Although only a small part, the survey shows positive effects from improving school attendance to reducing leftovers. ''
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All children should prepare for the “school lunch” class−prepare chopsticks, cloth placemats and wiped napkins, cups and toothbrushes.
Teachers also sit and eat together in the classroom to provide easy-to-understand examples and prepare for questions asked by children. After eating, everyone brushed their teeth and this time it was time to clean. Clean classrooms, hallways, entrances, toilets, etc.
This school lunch success should be a good example for other countries, such as the United States, who wants to take a break from lunch. If done well, the children will be charged with energy and the afternoon class will be more responsive and more productive. According to the article, school meals have the following influences:
“Make the next generation children have healthy eating habits and tastes and understand the importance of food. They can also develop skills such as working in the kitchen, efficient catering, and thorough cleaning.”