School Lunch From Around the World

Clockwise from the top, shall we?
Fish, ham and scrambled eggs (yes, VERY mysterious), kimchi, mi-yuk gook (kelp soup), and finally, rice and more seaweed (laver). All of it is quite good except the ham- it's processed beyond even bologna over there. For bonus points, the yellow stuff on the plate in the corner is pickled daikon or "mu".

I liked school lunches too. I remember some items that I have never seen anywhere other than primary school cafeterias that I miss. They used to serve a great little crumb cake that I loved.

At my highschool it was all about the chicken burgers.

If we look at everything the american way i'm sure we'll find the most appetizing lunches at http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/, you know, mystery ground meat, wrapped in bacon, wrapped in more fat and deep fried in fat? Because its so much more appetizing than grilled fish and seaweed?

The author of that site is so ignorant it makes me sick. Honestly, articles on neatorama were quality compared to this garbage. Don't know why you're sponsor it. Disappointing, really.

Fish heads, fish heads
Roly poly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads
Eat 'em up, yum!

i actually found this incredibly offensive. i'm korean-american, and i don't take kindly to some unresearched genius making fun of the daily diets of other ethnicities. i'd take kelp soup, kimchi and spinach over processed steak fingers and scoop-shaped artificial starches any day.

^ I agree, the culturally ignorant idiot shouldn't be featured on neatorama

Loved our school lunches.
And that korean lunch looks great. I think the greens on the plate is spinach. My mother often uses it when she makes kimbop. It's also good by itself b/c they put some kind of oil and stuff on it. Very tasty.

Anywho.. at the HS I went to. I never ate in the cafeteria, but I know a lot of people did. We also had like a mini-food court. A place that sold Taco Bell, Pizza and the best eggrolls ever!

I don't understand why you think the author was being offensive? Where did the author make fun of Korean food? It just seems to me that they didn't know what the items were. I say quit being so hyper sensitive. If someone in Korea said, "What the heck is that?" I wouldn't care one bit. You guys are lame for being so uptight.

They all look better than anything I remember eating in school, but the meals always tasted better than they looked. We had beans and cornbread at least twice a week.

Anywho, I e-mailed the author, told him some people were offended by the Korean lunches, and asked him to remove anything that could be misconstrued as offensive.

@notoriousnicholas

I find your comment offensive, please cease and desist your actions on making me read your comment.

Millions of years of evolution wiring the brain to notice any and all differences in order to decide on the friend/foe or fight/flight response and a bunch of modern goodie-two-shoe-ers want to throw that away.

Differences are what make the world interesting. Who cares if people poke fun at them - at least they noticed.

If you want everyone to be alike, join a cult.

Amen Vonskippy

@Gauldar

Wow.

Sorry, but this just looks gross, regardless of any cultural bias.

@notoriousnicholas

And for the love of god stop taking me seriously!

seriously people, no need to get upset. i thought it was interesting what other people in the world got for school lunch. if neatorama hadn't posted this, i would have never even given a thought to what people in other countries eat for lunch. i just wish there were more nations represented but hey, maybe they don't even have school lunches. either way, if you don't like a neatorama post, don't read it.

I personally found this interesting! We didn't have cafeterias where I grew up (rural Canada). My first thought was "Wow, that's a lot of food!" People brought their own lunches and it was typically a basic sandwhich (often peanut butter and jam), and a piece of fruit).

Probably would have been better to have a school lunches in someways,I would probably be more inclined to think "Do Ihave a veggie with my lunch? Do I have fruit? Protein?"

The only thing that gave me pause was the "nasty" comment on the organic lunch. Lol. The different culture lunches were more interesting than not.

I grew up eating American food but now prefer Asian. I'm vegetarian and aside from the fish, would prefer a Korean or Japanese lunch over any of the American choices presented here. It mostly looks like fried pieces of tan food to me.

To Arwin3: when I first read your comment, I thought you said you dined on peanut butter and ham! Thanks for the unintentional funny! Glad I re-read that. It made me think of the punishment lunches my friend told me about. Her mother would send peanut butter and cheddar sandwiches to school if she or her seven siblings had gotten in trouble as a warning saying, "I know what you've done"!

@Mysterioso

I miss some school lunch items, too. I remember a Baconburger (ground beef fried in a bacon coating of some kind) and Congo bars (a blonde brownie with dark chocolate and white chocolate chips).

And, oh, the joy of the Spork...

I'm looking foreward to the future when we have school breakfast and supper programs as well, the best part of all will be the uniform white jumpsuits that we will all wear,that will be so cool! The implanted RFID chips will make everything so much more convenient and safe for everyone.
I'm not all for the forced medication, but if it makes everything better for the group sure I'll go along with it.

Hey! I recognize that! It's what I ate today..and yesterday..and the day before..and what I look forward to eating today :) School lunches in Korea are delicious, for the most part! And nutritious too. I wonder if it helps their behavior?

The Korean lunches look more appetizing than some of the American ones. Many of the latter looked unhealthy- lots of processed, fried starchy things.

I love how everyone is cracking on the American lunches as being unhealthy when it's the FRENCH lunches that have french fries with EVERYTHING.

@VonSkippy - i like "difference" too. Theres a difference between poking fun and making fun - thats like saying bullies are justified in bullying because they can point out differences. Not that its an analogy to what the OP of the post did, but i'd choose your words a little more wisely

Anyways, I posted a comment on the OP post and he has since removed the comment and changed the comments on the post. If you weren't here before comment ~9, the comments on this thread are out of context

I'll end this response with a quote:
"Theres no 'overreaction'. Theres your reaction, and theres my reaction. Who are you to set the standard?"

wow, its so interesting seeing what kids eat in other countries. I wonder if they hate lunch food as much as we did here in America?

I went to a public school here in Chicago. Ghetto, I guess. The food was pretty sucky, but by 1 pm you pretty much ate anything they gave you.

I actually remember some of those lunches pictured there. haha good times.

for years, ive longed for some of those elementary school rectangular pizza slices... i still dream about that taste...

It's Salsbury steak day!

OMG seekshelter.... those were the freakin best. Those thin rectangle floppy pizzas they served in elementary school were AWESOME.
Our elementary school also had THE best PB sandwiches. It was a honey PB, served with a bowl of vegtable soup. Good lord, best ever!

I feel bad for people who had sucky school meals.... everything the schools served here was awesome.

yea lisa us ghetto school kids got the sucky food lol

tear*

@notoriousnicholas
I think its more about referring to seaweed as 'pubic hair' on the japanese lunch...
I dunno, maybe if someone referred to pepproni pizza as 'blood stained pad' it'd have the same effect.