"Please enjoy the lunch, teachers. Please enjoy the food, schoolmates. Enjoy yourself, everybody!" Immediately upon the conclusion of this deafening prelude, 900 delighted and excited children sit down and attack their lunch with the gusto unique to the young and starved. This particular scene in Taiwan's school-lunch program takes place each class day in the Tunghsin Primary School.
Last November the Bureau of Education of the Taipei City Government selected seven elementary schools to initiate the program. Section Chief Oliver S. Lin, who is in charge of the Division of Primary Education, explains the origin of the project: "This plan was initiated by Taipei City Mayor Hsu Shui-teh. When he was still mayor of Kaohsiung City, he promoted the school-lunch program in the Kaohsiung area, aiming to have a kitchen in every primary school so that children could enjoy fresh and nutritious lunches."
Before the program began, most children carried large lunch-boxes to school-filled primarily with rice and vegetables-and then put them in massive steamers. By lunch time the box-lunches were often either burned or had achieved a decidedly unpleasant shade of brown. The vegetables that had left home an attractive green resembled faded khaki and, more worrisome, had lost their nutritive value. Some children whose parents were too busy to prepare lunch-boxes for them purchased snacks and soft drinks to fill their stomachs at lunchtime, providing themselves with the nutritional equivalent of a sugared cardboard box. Through the implementation of the school-lunch project, these problems are being solved.
Experienced cooks prepare lunch.
When Mayor Hsu was transferred to become mayor of Taipei in June 1985, he submitted a similar school-lunch program proposal to the Taipei City Council. The measure passed smoothly, and last November it was formally initiated for testing among selected primary schools in Taipei, including Tunghsin Primary School.
Founded last September, Tunghsin has a spacious lunch room so it has adopted a collective approach to the lunch hour. When the bell rings at noon this particular Tuesday, Principal Chou Nai-wen takes his guests to the cavernous yet comfortable basement room as the students file in and stand behind their seats. Rice, fried chicken, broccoli with shredded pork, eggs, and oranges await next to the essential utensils at the front of each row of tables. Students on duty are responsible for distributing food. After all the students are ready—and following the unanimous and boisterous invitation to eat and enjoy—the enthusiasm for eating is matched only by the din of conversation.
Principal Chou introduced Tunghsin's school-lunch project from the very beginning of the school's existence. Last summer, the school established a preparatory committee consisting of the management, R&D, auditing, and executive divisions. They first visited Kaohsiung to learn on the spot the structure and operation of the program, then set up their own model for Tunghsin.
Every morning around eight o'clock, Chunghua Livestock Company, a meat and vegetable wholesaler recommended by the Department of Market Management, delivers food to the school. After strict inspection, the food-stuffs are prepared by three cooks employed by the school. Chou emphasizes the importance of food safety: "Since we have devoted so much effort to the school-lunch idea, we do not want any blemish to mar the program. It would take only one case of food poisoning to ruin the whole project. The only problem we have encountered within the first four months was a case when the fish did not smell quite right. We returned it immediately."
When asked about the reaction of students to the new set-up, Chou smiles happily. "In the beginning, sixty percent of the students attended the program. Now almost ninety percent participate." Hung Chia-hang, a fourth-grade student, agrees with his principal's assessment: '" like the school-lunch because it tastes better than my mother's food. Also, having lunch with so many classmates is a lot of fun." Although his mother might not be overjoyed to hear this assessment of her culinary arts, she no doubt would be compensated by his next comment. Young Hung proudly holds up his toothbrush and continues: "After the lunch, we have to brush our teeth." Another student, Lee Yi-chu, is pleased that the food selections are frequently changed, and that even hamburgers are served once or twice a month. Since McDonald's and other American hamburger chains are in vogue throughout Taiwan, kids are crazy about the idea of having them served occasionally at school.
How about the remaining ten percent who do not participate in the program? Mr. Chou, one of the teachers, says that some students have elder brothers and sisters who study in high schools that do not have lunch programs. Because their parents have to arrange lunch-boxes for them, preparing one more is not a problem. Other students, due to economic reasons, do not participate in the project. Although NT$500 (US$15) per month is not a big deal for most families, it can be a burden for a few. Much more frequently, however, the reason for not attending the collective lunch is special eating habits, like being a vegetarian or being sensitive to seafood.
Students hear familiar pleas for more when serving their classmates.
Mrs. Wu, a student's mother who is on campus to bring a textbook accidentally left at home by her daughter, gives an enthusiastic assessment of the program: "It's terrific! Although I am a full-time housewife and have plenty of time to prepare lunch, I am tired of racking my brains to change the varieties of dishes. My kid's nitpicking habits also give me a headache. When she took the initiative to participate in the school lunch program, I was very surprised. I was also worried she may not like it since the school teachers require students to eat all the assigned food. Amazingly, because of the supervision of teachers and the competition among other students, she eats everything believe it or not, even vegetables!" Although Mrs. Wu's case may be special, the high percentage of participation also indicates the program's popularity.
Actually, Kaohsiung City was not the first district to practice the school-lunch project. Twenty years ago, Taiwan Province, with U.S. aid assistance, conducted a program providing free, nutritious lunches in those coastal areas and mountainous districts where living conditions were below standard and children could not get sufficient nutrition, especially during the growing period. Now, as Taiwan is stepping into the group of developed countries, per capita GNP has surpassed US$3,750. Insufficient food is no longer a problem; instead, balanced nutrition has become the new issue.
Principal Wang Pi-cheng of Chunghsing Primary School expresses his opinion on balancing nutrition in the school-lunch program: "Some parents ask us to raise fees and increase the quantity of food. However, I think nowadays most children already absorb enough basic food bulk. Our goal is to provide a balanced diet. As long as kids eat all the assigned food, which usually consists of meat, vegetables, soup and fruit, the nutritional content is more than adequate." Chunghsing School rotates the menu every month, and prefers seasonal vegetables that are fresh yet inexpensive. As Wang conducts a lunch-room tour, his visitors see the fare today is tasty Chinese-style sausages, a mix of corn, green beans and chopped carrots, sweet and sour soup, and an orange. The food looks delicious. Wang says one of the cooks has extensive experience in running a cafeteria. This month, 89 percent of the students are attending the school-lunch program.
The "old" style—a mother brings lunch for her daughters on a rainy day.
Since Chunghsing School does not have a large enough room to accommodate all the students at one sitting, they have their lunches in their classrooms. Students are assigned to carry the food to each room, and then to distribute it to their classmates. The process is smoothly executed. Miss Lee, one of the school's teachers, says: "The children are easily trained, and after a week the distribution is quick and efficient. Moreover, the children like the food very much. They obviously put on weight in the first month; the average is two or three pounds, but some increase as much as eight or nine." After the lunch, students assist the dishwashers by pre-cleaning their stainless-steel plates with their napkins before returning them to the kitchen.
Besides the seven schools that have internally-managed kitchens, the Bureau of Education also selected the Mandarin Experimental Primary School to conduct a lunch program supplied by an outside private food company. Mr. Lin, a section chief with the bureau, explains the arrangement: "The costs for each school to construct a kitchen may reach US$60,000 to US$90,000. If we can find private companies to supply lunches with the same quality, it is another alternative that may be more cost-effective."
Hsintai Food Company has been providing lunches to the Mandarin Experimental Primary School since last December. By paying NT$27 per day (US$0.80), students can enjoy rice, three courses, and a popular milk-based drink. Because the quality of food is about the same as that supplied by school kitchens, private company supply may well provide school authorities with the best bargain. The companies, however, have a problem of their own. They cannot specialize only in school lunches because business would come to a screeching halt during the summer and winter vacations. The private sector will need to solve this difficulty, perhaps through some form of diversification within the food service industry, before many companies can be attracted to the school programs. Because there is money to be made, however, local entrepreneurs are bound to come up with a solution in the near future. Meanwhile, the educational principle guiding the program is that no matter who supplies the food "to let parents feel at ease and children eat with joy. "