This past summer, we kept an eye on the news about school lunches. First of all, in Rongjiang New District, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, due to the untimely delivery of meals in the local central kitchen and the shortage of service personnel, hundreds of children did not eat lunch at 3 p.m. on the first day of school, and some children had diarrhea after eating. Then at the Guangdong Country Garden Experimental School, the principal Chen Qianlin openly opposed the entry of pre-made dishes into the campus. Then the principals of many primary and secondary schools in Changsha said that they would not give students pre-made dishes, and some catering companies even promised that all student meals would be made on site every day.
This topic sparked widespread discussion in the news for a while. Behind the controversy are parents' management of school lunches, such as the use of pre-made ingredients in lunch but not displayed on the menu, the introduction of pre-made dishes by the school without consultation with parents, the same photo of ingredients uploaded on different dates on the lunch supervision platform of the "Sunshine Canteen", and the ingredient photos cannot clearly see the ingredient list and production date.
The controversy over the introduction of prepared dishes to campus has also led us to think about food safety. Whether the prepared dishes are fresh, whether the nutritional value of the food itself is destroyed in the process of multiple heating, and whether adolescents in the growth and development period will be malnourished if they eat prepared vegetables for a long time, etc. have begun to attract more and more attention.
In response to these concerns, the head of the relevant department of the Ministry of Education recently said that "pre-made dishes into schools" should be very cautious and should not be promoted. In Germany, there are also problems with some school lunches, such as the exposure to the use of unhealthy foods such as white meals. But unlike the controversy in China, parents in Germany are more concerned with the nutritional value of food and the health effects of students than on where it comes from and how it is prepared.
In China, school food safety and healthy eating have become one of the focuses of social attention. In this context, the education sector has also begun to act. In 2019, the Regulations on the Management of School Food Safety and Nutrition and Health were promulgated and implemented, which clearly required school food safety to be the responsibility of principals. The head of the relevant department of the Ministry of Education stressed that "the Ministry of Education will not take the initiative to promote 'pre-made dishes into schools'." ”
In addition, a number of experts and academics have also made suggestions. Xiong Bingqi, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said, "To eliminate the worry of pre-made dishes entering the campus, we must first make the canteen meals open and transparent, so that students can eat well, eat safely and nutritiously." In Changsha, principals of primary and secondary schools expressed similar views, stressing the importance of food safety in schools and pledging to ensure the quality and nutritional balance of school meals.
In Germany, parents are also paying more attention to school lunches. They begin to care about the health of their children's diet, focusing on the nutritional value and source of food. The German federal government is also actively taking measures to strengthen the regulation and management of school lunches to ensure food safety and nutritional balance.
For the "prepared dishes on campus" controversy, we should also see the deeper problem behind it: that is, the problem of school food safety and healthy eating. This requires the joint efforts of schools, parents, education departments, food regulators, etc. We should look at this controversy from multiple angles to better protect the health and safety of children.
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