In Japan, providing lunch for elementary and junior high school students is part of the Japanese education system. There are organizations across the country that focus on food education.
Japan has been providing lunch to elementary and junior high school students for more than 100 years.
The history of food delivery in Japan can be traced back to 1889 at Tadai Elementary School in Tsuruoka Town, Yamagata Prefecture, where monks found that children from poor families went to school hungry at noon, so they went door-to-door to prepare lunch for the children.
Since then, elementary schools across Japan have started providing lunch services to children.
Recently, the Propaganda Department of the Japanese Cabinet Government published a photo of the "feeding" of schools from the Showa to the Reiwa era, with the caption "Which school lunch do you remember the most?" ”
Unexpectedly, this set of photos caused a thousand waves with one stone, and Japanese parents also turned on the mode of complaining.
The photo shows the evolution of Japanese school lunches from the Meiji and Taisho periods to the Reiwa year.
During the Meiji period (1868~1912), school lunches consisted of rice balls, salmon, and pickles.
During the Taisho period (1912~1926), school lunches consisted of five-color rice and miso soup.
By the early ~ mid-Showa period (1926~1957), that is, the grandparents' generation, school lunches were high-protein, low-calorie whale meat, bread, and skimmed milk powder.
From the mid~late Showa period (1957~1989), my parents' generation used a wide variety of breads, rice, curry rice, pasta, and fruit and vegetable salads for school lunches.
In the Heisei and Reiwa periods (1989~present), school lunches became especially abundant. An international touch is also added. In addition to Japan's native cuisine, Chinese spring rolls and ingredients from other countries are also added.
Just looking at the photos, it is really abundant, there are meats, vegetables, salads, soups, fruits, and milk.
And it is precisely the school lunches of the Heisei and Reiwa era that make many Japanese parents complain, saying that they do not match what their children eat.
Someone popped up a photo of their child's school lunch with the caption, "This is what my child's school lunch looks like." Too few side dish options. ”
There is only a bowl of white rice, a fried food, and a bowl of vegetable soup. Compared to the lunch with 6 kinds of ingredients popped out by the Cabinet government, not only is there less variety, but the color matching is also much inferior.
Immediately afterwards, more and more netizens began to po photos. Someone posted a photo of a bowl of white rice, a small piece of fish, a bowl of vegetable soup and a carton of milk, writing, "That's all for lunch last week." And with a crying emoji
。
There was also a lunch from a mother in the fourth grade of elementary school. There was a bowl of white rice, a small siu mai, 3 pitifully small pieces of fried chicken, a bowl of soup and a bottle of milk.
The mother said that when her child came home from school, she chatted with him and asked the baby, "How was the fried chicken nuggets for lunch today?" ”
The child replied, "Just 3 very small chicken nuggets and one siu mai." I don't have enough to eat, and there are too few dishes. ”
In the interview, the mom continued, it's really sad because you can't add food at school. The current amount is completely insufficient, and the first thing the child does when he comes home from school is to find something to eat, because he is too hungry.
And children in the fourth grade of elementary school are in the process of growing up. Food is also important for building a strong physique. So she really worries about her children's school lunches.
In other words, the reality that Japanese children face for lunch is far from the food education that the government promotes, such as "one soup and three dishes".
Kaneko, a registered dietitian, said that Japan's prefectures and cities have prepared their menus according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's "School Lunch Intake Standards," with the goal of reaching about one-third of their daily nutrient needs. The standard for school lunch intake per student aged 10~11 is 780 kcal.
However, Kaneko also admitted that in the photo of the Cabinet Government PO, "there are too many varieties for lunch, which does not correspond to reality".
Even Tatsu Yoshida, a reporter in charge of school food and food education, couldn't help but jump out and say, "This is too rich and not in line with this era at all."
This wave of successive slaps in the face made the old face of the cabinet government unbearable.
The experts also hurriedly came out to play a round with the mud and said, "This is mainly due to regional differences." "The implication is that the government is not deceiving people, and the poor food is just that you are unlucky and not in the right place.
However, if you look at street interviews all over Japan, parents from Osaka to Hakodate have a lot of opinions about school food.
A citizen of Osaka said, "There are too few side dishes at school. My child is the type who doesn't like to eat. Even so, even he didn't have enough to eat. Sometimes there are very few extra meals, and sometimes there are no extra meals. ”
A citizen of Nagoya said, "Is it possible to add one food to the school lunch?" I'd love to increase the cost of school lunches, at least so that growing kids get the nutrition they need! ”
A citizen of Hakodate said, "It's not so much a matter of taste, but rather a matter of quantity." Even if the side dish is set, can't you add more to the white rice? ”
Japanese netizens on the Internet are also complaining about this.
Fried whale nuggets, I don't really know what that thing is. I feel like we still have high quality lunches in our area, but school lunches are getting deserted compared to 30 years ago. I still talk excitedly with my family about how good wakame rice used to be for school lunches, or dessert and milk seasoning. There are all kinds of families in this society, and some children are looking forward to school lunches. I want my children to eat well and grow up healthy, isn't that what taxes are for? I hope that the issue of lunch quality will be resolved as quickly and efficiently as it will be by increasing the remuneration of parliamentarians. As a taxpayer, I am saddened that if vulnerable children start to go without food, the country will eventually perish. We know that food prices are rising, so I hope the city will make improvements as soon as possible, rather than just continuing last year's budget.
More than 20 years ago, I was in elementary school, so I don't really remember much about lunch. First of all, it may be that there are differences between cities, so there are not a few areas where the photos provided are not much different from those published by the government. I don't think parents in these areas will be speaking out. If there are difficulties with school lunches in the area where the parents who spoke out this time are located, which district or city is it? Why is this happening? The article doesn't make it clear. In addition, there are voices saying that I am hungry when I go home and that there is not enough school lunch, but when I was in elementary school, I always filled my stomach with school lunch, and I don't remember going hungry when I came home from school. It would be abnormal if I was so hungry just because I ate a small amount of school lunch that it affected the afternoon after school classes, but I think I generally came home as a kid with the feeling of "Mom, I'm hungry". I don't want the price of food to go up, so it should be difficult to increase the amount of lunch.
In a Japanese food education film, a school principal once said, "A 45-minute lunch break is also a study time, which is no different from a children's math and reading class." "Since the official believes that eating is education, the most basic thing is that the children must be able to eat enough!