School Lunch

This is a post I have been wanting to do all year. Of course anything related to food and nutrition is close to my heart and school lunch in particular is definitely a hot button issue for me. I mean really?! What's more important than the food we give our children? How can we expect them to think and concentrate, grow, and be healthy if we're not feeding them healthy balanced diets? But as a parent, let me just be real for a minute and say, I definitely don't love having to make my kids lunches every day. Of course I love that I know what they're eating and I have control of the nutritional content of their lunches but honestly it's a pain in the ass.

School lunch takes on a whole new meaning here in France. For starters, no more preparing my kids lunch for school, it's not allowed! You have two choices:

1. Eat what's provided at the school cantine
2. Pick up your kid from school and bring them home for lunch (they get a 2-hour break) 

That's it. No special meals, no special requests, no bagged lunches.

Image Source: https://karenlebillon.com/french-school-lunch-menus/

In true French fashion the food served to the children is just as thought out and high quality as you would expect. We are provided with the menu in advance and through a website we reserve the days we wish our children to eat in the cantine. Here's what's being served this week.

Notice that every meal includes an appetizer, entree, side dish, yogurt or cheese, bread, and dessert. EVERY MEAL!! It's unreal. In the beginning, the girls were so excited about this that Lola actually admitted to me that she was sneaking extra servings of bread and putting them in her pockets! 

I'll also add here that in an 8-week menu none of the days are repeated and they actually change the menu with the seasons, highlighting local foods and making notes whenever they add something organic (bio). Furthermore the food is served on actual plates with real cutlery, not plastic versions of utensils, and glass cups for water.

A friend of mine who has a daughter in the middle school was telling me that at the parent orientation, following the principal, the chef came out and spoke to all the parents for at least 30 minutes about the quality of the food served!!  Can you believe this? I'm totally blown away by the expectation and thought that is going in to feeding the children of France. This is certainly an area where the U.S. could learn a thing or two.

According to blogger Karen Le Billon (https://karenlebillon.com/) who has blogged extensively on the topic of French School Lunches "the best way to think about a school cantine (cafeteria) in France is to imagine what your school cafeteria would have been like if the food had been made by cordon bleu chefs-in-training, overseen by a nutritionist, and served to you at the table by maternal waiters (who were only too happy to cut your food if you couldn't quite manage it)". She described that so well that I just had to copy and paste it in.

I asked the girls if they could share some thoughts about what it's like eating in the cantine:

Lola:

Q. Describe the school lunches in France?
A. Better/healthier food than in California and a bit more time to eat.

Q. Describe the lunch room?
A. First you get in, then you grab your bowl and utensils, then you walk through the line to get your food, then you pick a table and sit and eat, sometimes you can go back for seconds. At the end we have to all help clean the tables before the next group comes in.

Q. What's your favorite part?
A. I love the pasta (no surprise!), sweet potato puree, this certain meat that I really like, chicken curry, square fish (I think this is similar to fish sticks), and the meatballs.

Q. What's your least favorite part?
A. That sometimes it's food I really don't like and I don't eat very much and then I'm hungry again before the end of the day. (Interesting to note here is she admits that she will force herself to eat the foods she doesn't really like because she doesn't want to get hungry. She also said that over the course of the year she's actually starting to like some of the foods she didn't used to like!) -- Imagine that! ;-)

Teah:

Q. Describe the school lunches here?
A. I don't like the food as much here; in California we got pizzas, nachos, and burritos. Back home we ate in our classroom but here we have to eat in the cantine.

Q. Describe the lunch room?
A. You go into this room where there is a hot food area and a lady or man who serves the food to you. Then there are tables we eat at. Then there's a little area where we get our bowls, napkins, plates, and forks, knives, and spoons. There's another area with shredded carrots or quinoa or fruits and sometimes there's yogurt and banana.

Q. What's your favorite part?
A. I like the square fish and pasta

Q. What's your least favorite part?
A. I don't like the mashed up kale with a different disgusting fish.

The other thing that I really appreciate is that they serve lunch in 20-30 minute intervals and the children are staggered so everyone has plenty of time to eat but still has at least an hour to play. No rushing through their meal so they have more time on the playground.

Now of course as with everything there is a cost. In Anthy we pay 5 Euros per child per day. This is not cheap and in many parts of France it's actually quite a bit less. The average cost most families pay around France is between 2.50 and 3 euros per child, which is actually similar to what we pay in the U.S. And as in the U.S. they do have subsidy programs available for low income families. Unlike the United States however the school lunch program in France is not a national school lunch program. The cantines are funded by local municipalities.

Admittedly no system is perfect but after almost an entire school year taking advantage of the French School Lunch Program I'm definitely a fan!