School Dinners...

We went to the doctor yesterday and got the all clear so Ebi-kun is back at school - hurrah! This week he will start school dinners and so we have been sent the menu for the month. I am surprised about the amount of detail that goes into it.

For non Japanese readers, I will go through the columns.

date

day

the days menu, the things in bold are sourced locally

Kcal - top figure is for elementary school kids the lower one for junior high

protein in g

then a breakdown of ingredient separated into

protein

vegetables

carbs

The sheet also states that they usually have rice three times a week and bread once or twice and noodles  3 or 3 times a month.

They get 200ml of milk a day

And their mission for the school meals has 7 points

• to provide meals the make the children 'genki' (good health, mind and energy)
• to show thanks for the food used 
• to show thanks for the people who provide/make the food
• to provide a healthy balanced diet
• to encourage good social skills and co-operation
• to learn about traditional foods and recipes
• to learn about where the food comes from

Our town also checks the radiation levels of the children's food and posts the results on the town website.

I can't read everything on the menu but some of the dishes include.. 

rice with miso ramen, shumai (steamed dumpling) and konbu salad 

butter roll with hamburg, salad and corn soup

melon-pan with croquet, corn salad and soup

curry rice with mini shrimp fry and something else!

It all looks pretty healthy and all the elementary kids I know say they like school dinner, I just hope Ebi-kun can speed up his eating a bit. If you want to know what the average school dinner looks like, pop over to this blog, the guy takes photos of the lunches he has at the schools he works at.