I was curious about school lunch in other countries so I asked my English friend, Mary. She teaches English in a Japanese elementary school and eats Japanese-style school lunch daily.

“In England, the school lunch had pizza, hot dog, fried chicken, or other junk foods that could lead children directly to obesity until around the year of 2005. No one had ever made a complaint about it.

Then it was Jamie Oliver, a famous, handsome chef in England who initiated a campaign to change school lunch. He directly pleaded with Prime Minister Blare that the school lunch in those days succeeded only in mass production of obese children. Prime Minister Blare agreed and accepted 100% of Jamie’s appeal. He also incorporated Jamie’s original menus that have less fries and pizza, but use more vegetables with lots of varieties. And most of all, they are all low calories.”

This is so great! I checked Jamie’s picture and found that he gained weight recently. Mr. Handsome Chef has already become middle-aged.

Mary continued, “The ordinary lunch that children bring from home has a sandwich, a sweetened flavored yogurt, an apple, and a Kit Kat! I guarantee you that every child has a Kit Kat for their lunch! Their lunch is a sweet, not a meal. I prefer a bento, a lunch box, in Japan.” Her evaluation is scathing. She continued talking bitterly about Japanese school lunch.

“I agree that school lunch in Adachi City is great. But I sometimes find my school lunch needs improvements. Of course, not all the time.
For example, one day when we had a hamburger menu, my hamburger patty was not fully cooked. Sometimes I find the squashed rice grains. I can tell you that they use cheap rice.”

Considering what Mary told me, I think that we cannot necessarily blindly be happy and satisfied about the Japanese school lunch that it has been improving. What we can rely on the most is the leftover ratio because it measures how much children are satisfied. I truly hope that the regional administrations conduct a research on the leftover ratio in all over Japan.