Lunches in French schools are a shame in the country of haute cuisine
Yes you read it. Don’t think because you’re sending your kids to school in French schools they’ll eat succulently cooked meals, as might be expected in the Terre of Haute Cuisine… School lunches are most often these days managed by large food catering companies like Avenance, Sodexho and another one, who also run company cafeterias in fact.
But while adults have the means to complain, should there be a problem with the quality of meals served in their company’s cafeteria, school meals of extremely poor quality overall are served to a passive audience: children, at a very high price to parents – and municipalities,who often finance part of the cost in the public school system.
The cost of meals four days a week in a school in France is between 800 and 1 000 euros. Let’s take a 900 euro average cost, and see what that amounts to in terms of per meal cost. Given the number of holidays in French schools, kids only eat there about 3 weeks a month on average. So with 10 months of school, the 900 euros comes down to 90 euros a month, where kids only eat (3*4= 12) meals. That’s 7.5 euros a meal! For this price, I can get a good sandwich with protein, fresh vegetables and quality bread, followed by a desert, at any corner take out. I can also get a medium, thin crust pizza, with lots of tomatoe paste and limited amounts of cheese, the way they’re supposed to be made – making for a relatively healthy lunch- at a local pizza place.
Now let me describe the sort of things served to children at this price..
- For starters: Pizza, ‘saucisson’, paté
if any of you have an notions of nutrition, you may know that what is considered good practice in a meal is to start with a raw vegetable, prepared a certain way of course. IN France we are quite good at preparing our world famous vinaigrette and serving it with shredded carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, or to serve raw mushrooms with olive oil… Basically, we have quite a few options available to start a meal in a healthy manner. Fat rich pizza, saucisson ( salami) or paté made from unidentified meats are NOT part of them.
- For Main dishes: breaded turkey or other types of meats, overcooked and accompanied by a highly salty and startchy sauce, and tasteless ‘green’ beans or other vegetables
To say that kids have trouble eating the stuff is putting it mildly. My daughter says she has to eat a lot of bread to help some of it ‘go through’…
- For desert: highly sweetened and starchy industrial pudding, rock hard fruit, served unscliced or fruit salad out of a can with sugar syrup
Most kids dive on the desert for lack of other options, and those who try to eat the fruit give up after trying to peel it or bite into it.
I’ve seen in four schools so far in France with my children, two public and two private, and in all the parents presented demands for higher quality. Only one school responded favourably and accepted the staff take simple surveys of what was really eaten by all children there during the meals. Quite sad, really.
-> Article on UFC Que Choisir, a major consumer group, about the poor quality of school lunches confirmed by a national agency.
