Sweetgreen, an American organisation informing people on healthy food conducted a study recently on “What school lunch looks like around the world”. They studied its country location, ingredients that provides and the traditions of each country and created a wonderful photo-book. Of course, lunch meals vary day to day and from school to school. To average that, Sweetgreen studied various government initiatives, food programs, and nutritional policies and matched them with photos of school meals that students had shared on social media, recreating them in a studio to come up with what an “average” meal looks like. From Finland to Greece and from Brazil to South Korea, you can see those meals with each country’s own characters. It looks like US is pretty behind at this field.
Italy – Local fish on a bed of arugula, pasta with tomato sauce, caprese salad, baguette and some grapes
Finland – Pea soup, beet salad, carrot salad, bread and pannakkau (dessert pancake) with fresh berries
France – Steak, carrots, green beans, cheese and fresh fruit
Brazil – Pork with mixed veggies, black beans and rice, salad, bread and baked plantains
South Korea – Fish soup, tofu over rice, kimchi and fresh veggies
Greece – Baked chicken over orzo, stuffed grape leaves, tomato and cucumber salad, fresh oranges, and greek yogurt with pomegranate seeds
Ukraine – Mashed potatoes with sausage, borscht, cabbage and syrniki (a dessert pancake)
Spain – Sautéed shrimp over brown rice and vegetables, gazpacho, fresh peppers, bread and an orange
USA – Fried ‘popcorn’ chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, fruit cup and a chocolate chip cookie
