It’s well documented that American school lunches are often not the most nutritious meals. Options like pizza chicken nuggets burgers and potato croquettes abound. Cross the Atlantic to France and school lunches there are a parallel universe; they are served in multiple courses often with a vegetable or salad a hot main course bread and cheese and dessert (this is often fruit but sometimes a sweet treat like apple crumble or cake).
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 CBS | 2010-09-26 18:25:51 |  1,705,059 Views |
French Gourmet School Lunches
Offerings vary by school and region but can include beetroot salad French classics like duck confit confit parmentier carrots or even grilled guinea fowl. Water is standard no juice or milk. They’re not perfect — French schools without kitchens for example are fed mass-produced lower-quality food from a centralized kitchen elsewhere — but they’re generally a classy affair.
Of course the exact school lunch menus vary across the U.S. as well. For example while chocolate milk and crispy chicken sandwiches are on the menus in both New York City and South Carolina NYC seems to have more nutritious options like bean curry or roasted zucchini while one school in South Carolina serves burgers nachos tater tots and meatball sandwiches. A report from ProCare Therapy suggests that Louisiana has the worst school lunches when it comes to well-balanced nutritious meals with the most popular lunch item there being fried chicken. Hawaii is considered one of the most nutritious with options like stir-fry and kimchi.
There are some key cultural differences that explain why French school meals are so elaborate. In keeping with the generally relaxed lunch periods in France students have more time to eat — at least 30 minutes a day often more. French children also get more or less the same food as adults so there’s no culture of serving “kid-friendly” fare like chicken nuggets. But France also has fairly strict nutritional requirements for school meals. The French Ministry of Education imposes strict limits on the number of fried meals that can be served in schools each month (four out of about 20 meals) and only three high-fat desserts per month are allowed. Ketchup is largely banned in school cafeterias.
