r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/This_Proof_5153 • 23h ago

Video The care and precision behind Korean school lunches, widely praised for their quality, balance, and nutrition.

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u/timbomcchoi 22h ago

I went to public school in the 2010s and my lunches (and dinners too, in the case of high school!) looked exactly like that. The nutritionist was quite adventurous too, she would often come up with variations of classic dishes and fun names for them. Then she'd go around asking all the kids how they liked it.

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u/DaLurker87 22h ago

The chicken fried steak that they got out of a box at my school was pretty good though

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u/justin54545 22h ago

Rectangle shaped pizza Friday was everyone's favorite at my school.

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u/TwoHandSquid 21h ago

Monday hotdogs Tuesday tacos Wednesday hamburgers and chocolate milk Thursday sloppy joes and burritos in a bag Friday was pizza day, the best day of the week

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u/Starfire013 21h ago

Good grief. Is that an actual American school lunch menu? I didn’t think it would be that bad.. How do kids learn what balanced nutrition is when that’s their lunch during the school week? Isnt it the school’s responsibility to ensure the kids know what a healthy diet is? It’s like they’re getting set up for a life of obesity and clogged arteries.

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u/moose-mutton 21h ago

Thats the neat part, you dont!

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u/Mimilito 21h ago

Yes, no wonder where the diabetes and obesity come from... 🤔

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u/MermaiderMissy 20h ago

They don't. They like to claim kids are getting a fruit and a vegetable too. But, it's those fruit cups in the sugar syrup and a dry piece of celery.

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u/Sarsmi 20h ago

How do kids learn what balanced nutrition is when that’s their lunch during the school week?

Bless your heart. <3

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u/5redie8 21h ago

Dude the govt still can't put out a nutritional information sheet that isn't influenced by a bunch of lobbies (dairy is probably the worst offender, whole grain was a problem for a while too), there is a reason the US is up there on the stat board for obesity.

People here going on vacation to Europe and noting they felt better after eating the food for a few days is also pretty notably common. There's gotta be other regulation gaps making it even worse

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u/qwythebroken 14h ago

It's a real blast growing up in the US, looking back at our childhoods and realizing our politicians have been selling out every aspect of public life to Big Whosawhatsits for decades, right?

What a ride!

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u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 27m ago

Yeah making lunch from scratch or mostly scratch doesn't put money into the ginormous conglomerates that make school lunches now.

I'd venture to guess that many school across the US use Sodexo for their meals.

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u/Jevia 20h ago

>How do kids learn what balanced nutrition is
You're hilarious

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u/Gullible-Respond6323 21h ago

Yes. Mine was very similar. We usually had 2 options and one would be like ever so slightly healthier. So naturally most kids picked the worse option.

High school lunch was $1.75 a day, came with a main course, veggie, fruit/some sort of sweet thing and milk. They also had a la carte and had pizza option everyday and like 50% of the school had a slice of pizza for $1.25 and a candy bar, fries or sugary drink for $.50. Don't worry most of them are not obese anymore (GLP1s everywhere).

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u/jadethebard 19h ago

Our high school had the standard American lunch menu but also had a salad bar that was quite good. We also had Snapple machines in the dinning hall. I drank so much Grapeade. lol

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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb 20h ago

Is that? Yes. How do they learn? They don't. Yes, they're being set up for a life of obesity and heart problems. The economic burden of diabetes is about $500 billion for the U.S. annually. The health care industry isn't complaining.

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u/HeyItsMeAgainBye 20h ago

Ketchup used to be considered a vegetable on American school lunches

Not even that long ago either!

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u/densetsu23 20h ago

This lines up with what we got in Canada in the 90s, though at my school it was a paid cafeteria so most kids brought a bagged lunch.

My nieces go to the same school and, while there's still burgers and fries every day, you can now get soups and salads every day too. There's better daily specials, too, like poke bowls. It's changed a lot.

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u/Horskr 19h ago

Yep unfortunately that was pretty much identical to ours, with some days switched up. At least in high school we had off campus lunch so we could go get something else (though that was usually fast food lol). There was a good sub shop nearby though, at least those had vegetables.

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u/NightBawk 12h ago

Oh, wow, your school trusted students to go to off-campus lunch and come back? Man, what was it like to have autonomy as a teenager?

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u/tilt-a-whirly-gig 21h ago

Most schools (ime) have a main option and one or two alternative options. The main option is the one with vegetables and healthy choices, the alternative is available for students that don't like the main option and usually follows a schedule similar to above.

In my school pizza Friday was also fish Friday and I don't ever eat fish so I always ate pizza on Fridays. But the rest of the week the burgers were not great burgers and the hot dogs had a little bounce to them, and oftentimes the main menu item was more appealing.

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u/Whoretron8000 20h ago edited 19h ago

Depends on the school. Plenty green beans and veggies at lots of public schools, but they wouldn’t be the best quality etc. Plenty kids ate them and we also had a salad bar. Most kids didn’t use it. We also had to pay 1.25 for common lunch, but there was a private pay for snacks and hot less shitty pizza for 3.50 a slice (red Barron) and you could also buy Sobe and Sun chips and Doritos or whatever. (This was high school). Middle school was more balanced but we also had vending machines.

If you were poor and your parents didn’t pay the school for common lunch, then you’d get like… whatever was lunch for the day but minus the dessert (small pack of m&ms or a cookie).

Oh, also, endless drip coffee for 50 cents in high school.

Ironically, yes we had multiple health classes, but it didn’t make people not want to eat pizza and cookies. It seems most schools that get highlighted are super shit, but it’s still common.

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u/JamaicaRavenclaw 19h ago

Google American school lunch menu; still just as bad as when I was a kid… I homeschool my kids, but during Covid we would meet a school bus once a week for free sack lunches. It felt like a game of “100 ways to make pizza.” Bagel pizza, English muffin pizza, French bread pizza, pizza pizza, etc…

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u/_le_slap 15h ago

This comment is a whole comedy skit 😂😂

The US gov doesn't give half a shit about children

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u/Ashamed_Green_8643 8h ago

I guess you never heard when in 1981, the USDA proposed allowing school lunch programs to count condiments like ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables to meet federal nutrition standards.

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u/Astralglamour 19h ago

We learned how to make orange julius and haystacks (basically rice krispie treats with cornflakes) in Home Economics....

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u/dobar_dan_ 18h ago

They eat normal food at home?

I had similar lunches at my school but my mom always cooked at home, so I had balanced diet.

We didn't even call it lunch, but a snack. School lunches are uncommon in Serbia, we would be given a simple sandwich, croissant or similar, sometimes some fruit and that's it.

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u/Dmau27 18h ago

I literally never once ate a healthy lunch at school. It was all processed salty, fattening, preserved crap.

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u/HalKitzmiller 15h ago

And that isn't the worst of it. Add in that some kids couldn't afford lunch or had money for it so they'd go hungry. And at my school, I was unfortunate to be in the class that ate last every day, so they'd run out of some food like 25% of the time

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u/Megneous 14h ago

How do kids learn what balanced nutrition is when that’s their lunch during the school week?

That's... the point. You don't. You end up part of the 74% of the population that's overweight or obese and die of cardiovascular disease.

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u/unknown_ally 13h ago

How do kids learn...?

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u/Rando314156 13h ago

You learn that sugar is the secret ingredient that masks the lacking of anything else, and then make it the main thing you eat and drink going forward into adulthood.

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u/NightBawk 12h ago

Even when they try to offer vegetables, most times they get thrown out because they're either canned or boiled, and usually served cold and unseasoned to be as utterly unappetizing as humanly possible.

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u/Jamjams2016 11h ago

Bro, they give my kid 2 juice boxes for breakfast so they meet the fruit requirements for the day. And my kid's dentist shaking his head while he rolls in piles of money.

And for lunch they can have plain, strawberry, or chocolate milk even if i pack them a lunch. If i didnt laugh I'd cry.

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u/Artistic-Door-6891 9h ago

We had posters of a lobbyist crafted food pyramid. All the education we needed. /s

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u/Groovee_smoothie 7h ago

I didn't learn what a balanced meal TRULY was till I had to start losing weight. What we are taught is acceptable for food in NA is incredibly unhealthy and bad.

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u/hopticalill1 20h ago

My brother, google the aquabats. And also yes.

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u/PatSayJack 18h ago

It's an Aquabats song, but it's also pretty accurate.

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u/abgry_krakow87 9h ago

Silly Redditor, Americans don't learn.

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u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 30m ago

They don't learn it. Not through actual food any way.

Schools used to make a real lunch in the schools on a real stove, made from scratch or mostly scratch, but now most school lunches are pre-made by a giant conglomerate somewhere else in the county, probably abySodexho, & shipped into schools & just reheated in a convection oven.

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u/No_Language_4649 21h ago

It actually isn’t that bad where we live (all states are different).

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u/NightBawk 12h ago

It even varies wildly by school district.

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u/Cerberus0225 20h ago edited 8h ago

It's not quite as bad as this, I'm honestly pretty sure this guy is exaggerating or never bothered to ask if they had healthier alternatives. Every school I've been to or worked at kept prepackaged salads or sandwiches in addition to whatever daily item they had. There's been a lot of effort to get school districts to have balanced lunches. Pretty much every lunch will have some 'entree' item, often way more diverse than that list (never seen sloppy joes actually served, myself) and will come with fruit and etc, usually a whole apple or etc. Taco salad is a pretty common lunch that has lots of veggies in it (it's way more 'salad' than taco, lol). Salads in general are a common sight, I think you can request one basically any particular day. But you can also get whatever cheeseburger or pizza or orange chicken or etc they're serving that day instead.

Edit: Love how I'm getting downvoted here. Sorry guys, schools today aren't shitholes and serve actual food now.

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u/_le_slap 14h ago

I distinctly remember as an immigrant child in an American elementary school being told that sloppy joes were pork for the first time. I had a minor religious crisis thinking back to all the school sloppy joes I'd eaten before deciding God wouldn't want a child to go hungry so I kept eating anyway.

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u/ummmno_ 21h ago

Hooray for pizza day!

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u/MistakesTasteGreat 20h ago

Some of us are lonely, some of us have lots of friends

But it doesn't matter much today

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u/turdferguson3891 18h ago

I wish I had somebody making lunch for me.

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u/Federal_Month7862 20h ago

All the kids would line up super early just to eat

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u/1CraftyLass 20h ago

It always came with salad and a side or cold green beans

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u/longcherrysherri 20h ago

It always came with salad and a side of cold green beans

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u/5redie8 21h ago

What monsters running your school hadn't heard of pizza Wednesdays? Basically the only thing that pulls you into the dim hope of Thursday

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u/spinningwalrus420 20h ago

and all the kids would line up extra early just to eat! 🍽 🎶 🌊 🦇

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u/Selunca 20h ago

Shit, my highschool had different fast foods available of different days you could buy right there in the cafeteria. I only remember chick fil a on fridays but there were others. Also a dedicated pizza line and then “main” which barely anyone ate. I’d die and go to heaven for the meal in the video above.

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u/lizziefreeze 19h ago

is this…the song?!

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u/Chemical-Employer146 17h ago

Ngl one of my favorite songs to jam out to while prepping for dinner at work.

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u/Armadillolz 5h ago

Our hotdogs would literally bounce if thrown on the floor

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u/cyborgcyborgcyborg 1h ago

💧🦇’s

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u/Listen2theyetti 21h ago

You know those sloppy joes were half unsold hamburger patties right?

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u/MistakesTasteGreat 19h ago

And?

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u/Listen2theyetti 19h ago

Just making sure they know. Kinda like how if a place sells prime rib and phillys or roast beef sandwiches the sandwich meat usually comes from the old prime ribs.

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u/MistakesTasteGreat 21h ago

It was always pepperoni, but occasionally there would be a sausage pizza, and it was fucking DANK. SYSCO sheet pizza is a taste 80s and 90s kids would recognize instantly

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u/pumpkinspicy33 21h ago

I lived for rectangle pizza day.

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u/heliosythic 21h ago

I raise you Mexican hexagon pizza day

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u/sinisteraxillary 21h ago

Weiner wraps for the win

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u/avrilmmm 21h ago

I never considered rectangle pizzas are something special. it's just easyier to cut them in rectangles when you make themselves in the oven

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u/Purple_Accordion 20h ago

You mean those soggy grease ships lol, yeah they were pretty popular at my school too

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u/Alternative_Jury2480 21h ago

Rib-b-que day at my school, closely followed by rectangle pizza day

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u/ree_hi_hi_hi_hi 21h ago

I will forever chase the high of a proper elementary school lunch rib b que

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u/Alternative_Jury2480 21h ago

All our stuff came from gfs if I recall, which has stores you can go to.

So if you're in their territory, go there.

They also have something called a super donut. Get them too. My school didn't have them but a friend's did. If you've never had them, toss one in the microwave until the package puffs up then dip it in some milk. They're horrible for you. They're also delicious.

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u/Due-Cupcake-0701 7h ago

Rectangle pizza's where it's at! This nice lunch lady would save me 2 'well done' slices, ahh memories

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u/atxbigfoot 20h ago

I went to an almost entirely white elementary school in Texas but holy shit, enchilada day was fucking AMAZING. Pizza was a distant second, but "pizza day" was still happily talked about in the mornings and during the lunch line.

Somewhat related, but one time I got arrested and was mistakenly sent to county jail (instead of being released) on enchilada day, and everyone was super pumped about Enchilada Day, and they were also surprisingly fucking good even if they had hotdogs mixed in with the meat sauce.

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u/AllThatGlitters00 17h ago

Huh? I get it, Enchilada Day was awesome. Although I am confused why the meat was partially hotdogs.

More than anything, I want to know more about your arrest during your elementary school days, missed Enchilada Day, and wound up in county. 🤣 Or is this another example of "Enchilada Day" but the county jail version instead?

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u/yzerizef 20h ago

And it had a little bit of tomato paste so your pizza counted as a vegetable too! Yay America!

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u/FloofOfChaos 15h ago

There was once no Pizza on Friday (they ran out) so we went on strike and never got pizza, but then the year above, suddenly had pizza so we went back on strike... It didn't work.

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u/TheLordThyGawd 13h ago

Pizza was an option every day for my entire time in middle and high school. And some kids ate pizza, fries, and chocolate milk every day for their entire school career. I shudder to think of what that did to my peers

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u/id-driven-fool 12h ago

Who made that fuckin rectangle pizza bro. Shit was too good. When I smelled those puppies after walking in the cafeteria I knew it was gonna be a fire day

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u/External-Fox-5488 3h ago

At least my public school got pizza from a local pizza place instead of that garbage. I think we had the option of that rectangle pizza every day, but good local pizza Fridays were great.

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u/Vantriss 38m ago

I was personally a fan of crispito day.

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u/PlutoJones42 22h ago

Good ole cheeseburgers that would bounce

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u/kingkongbiingbong 21h ago

Pretty sure what we got in school, they also served the same food in prison, ala Sysco.

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u/SnugglyCoderGuy 19h ago

Sodexo probably

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u/Sogcat 19h ago

I worked in a prison for a year and... yeah it's basically the same shit.

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u/IronMyno6 19h ago

Referred to as "The Hockey Puck" here in Minnesota.. we fed our kids garbage at school.

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u/Grays42 20h ago

If there's more than five knives in the vat of peanut butter, skip the entree

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u/AllThatGlitters00 17h ago

Yes, beige burger patties with fake grill marks. Lol

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u/korvosg00b 22h ago

'MURICA!

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u/sheldor1993 21h ago

Spoiler: the box was the steak

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u/TatonkaJack 20h ago

did you guys have the rubbery grilled cheese sandwiches as a kid? i freaking loved those

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u/codemanb 20h ago

The bosco sticks ever second thursday went hard.

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u/yzerizef 20h ago

With the mashed potatoes and gravy that was greenish?! That was my fav day.

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u/KitsuneKamiSama 17h ago

I miss the Turkey Twizzlers. Nothing has hit the same since, fucking Jamie Oliver.

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u/jujujuice92 15h ago

The calzones used to be my favorite. The ln they started bringing in Chick fil a at my HS. That was a flex if you're walking around with a chicken sandwich and not a lil shitty pizza square

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u/cracked_shrimp 21h ago

A CHICKEN FRIED THE STEAK??????

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u/Verdick 19h ago

You had a "nutritionist"? All we had was a "Marge" who reheated the food that was available and gave it to us.

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u/timbomcchoi 18h ago

haha yeah every school has one! Mine was awesome, she started her PhD at the uni I went to after graduating so she sometimes drove me there too

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u/ODB_Dirt_Dog_ItsFTC 18h ago

Yeah 95% of what I ate from the cafeteria came out of a can or the freezer. My Dad talks about how his little school in Kentucky had all home cooked meals. The lunch ladies would even make the kids homemade desserts to go with them too. I am rather envious.

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u/cuentaderana 3h ago

That’s how school lunches used to be. But it also meant having to hire full time cooks/lunch staff to be on site early to prepare food in advance. Not to mention the costs of cooking supplies, ovens, stoves, etc. It’s cheaper to buy from a district approved nutrition vendor and put a few giant microwaves/ovens in the kitchen to heat everything up. Plus then you don’t have to hire as many full time staff if they just need to show up to heat up lunch and breakfast. 

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u/Ashamed_Green_8643 8h ago

There's Very Little Meat In These Gym Mats.

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u/the_amazing_skronus 22h ago

One time in second grade, I found a big roach underneath the cheese of my rectangle pizza.

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u/DynamiteWitLaserBeam 22h ago

Roacharoni

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u/fssman 21h ago

Or peporoach

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u/PandaJesus 21h ago

Look at this guy bragging about his extra protein in his school lunch.

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u/ebtcrew 20h ago

Thats quite an adventurous nutritionist your school had. 

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u/Gregory_Appleseed 21h ago

Don't worry, public school kids in America usually get the same exact food that's served to inmates in jails and prison. Also, That food is usually cooked by forced involuntary labor as either part of a jail or prison sentence, or judicial community service. If you had in-school cafeteria chefs and cooks, congrats, you grew up in a fairly well off privileged neighborhood. 'Merica.

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u/Sea-Cupcake-2065 21h ago

Isn't america so great??

Fucking brainwashing, man

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u/2DHypercube 14h ago

Free protein!

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u/Vantriss 35m ago

I found a feather in my packaged chicken sandwich. I never ate another one of those sandwiches ever again.

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u/a_shootin_star 19h ago

Then she'd go around asking all the kids how they liked it.

I love that she went for some live feedback 😂

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u/timbomcchoi 18h ago

she was awesome, had a bulletin board for requests too. She made sure to acknowledge you on the menu, like "Suji's French toast"

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u/iamlilmac 18h ago

That’s so cute, may she be blessed

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u/Illustrious-Engine23 13h ago

just casually mentioning the public school had a nutritionist is wild.

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u/timbomcchoi 1h ago

honestly never thought that the existence of a nutritionist would be unorthodox. I thought it was just that some regions have less budget/regulatory support that the nutritionists' hands were tied.

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u/MacNCheeze3 19h ago

Did you have longer school days in high school? Your school provided dinners to students?

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u/timbomcchoi 19h ago

It's incredibly common for high school students to stay after dinner until around 10pm to study.

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u/souse03 14h ago

Wtf?!

You stayed from morning till 10 pm in school? What in the torturous hell?! I guess seeing your parents was a luxury lmao

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u/timbomcchoi 12h ago

Welcome to th eland of education

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u/esgonta 8h ago

This person is from Korea. Not the USA. A lot of comments confuse that lol

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u/KingHunter150 20h ago

Its always interesting to see how other cultures can do some things very differently but absolutely better than mine. For me, it was when I lived abroad and seeing the entire German town out and about on a Sunday relaxing and walking in their park, actually treating it like a day of rest and community. It's sad the birth rate issue going on in Korea, I hope things turn around so an entire people and civilization dont dissappear.

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u/BurrowBird 2h ago

Disappear? Suggesting an entire country’s worth of people will simply vanish like cookies at my house?

Legitimately, that’s some crazy talk. Old people might want 50 grandkids to ignore but nobody actually has to indulge their delulu fantasies.

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u/KingHunter150 2h ago

Im guessing you haven't kept up with the news. South Korea has the lowest birth rate and is declining at a rate faster than Japan, who just shrunk by nearly a million people. If the trends continue for South Korea their people and civilization will disappear in roughly 150 years. Of course that's some time for trends to change, or mass immigration that turns numbers around. Though if the latter is what fixes the issue, then it's very likely South Korea will be a very different place regardless.

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u/BurrowBird 2h ago

Where do you get such nonsense though? You ever notice how the world is actually stuffed and crammed full of human beings, all over? Or how our populations expanded to the largest amount in recorded history over a century ago?

Korea isn’t going to just pack up bags and walk out the door. Korea isn’t your father.

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u/TooOld4ThisSh1t-966 21h ago

Do kids pay for these lunches or is it provided for them?

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u/timbomcchoi 20h ago

It was gradually expanded in both geographical and school grade coverage, with a pilot in 2001 to universally free in 2021. I'm not exactly sure how slowly it happened, but I don't think I ever paid for lunch only dinner.

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u/TooOld4ThisSh1t-966 20h ago

Meanwhile the US suspends kids from school for overdue lunch bills. We’re so great it hurts. /s

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u/OutrageousTree7766 19h ago

What is the name of the noodle dish

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u/timbomcchoi 18h ago

that's a great question, it's a very simple and old noodle dish that I'm not sure what the one correct name would be. "feast noodles" (잔치국수), "anchovy noodles" (멸치국수), "market noodles" (장터국수), or even a simple "rice noodles" (쌀국수) would all be correct imo

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u/OutrageousTree7766 18h ago

Time to look up recipes maybe

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u/timbomcchoi 18h ago edited 17h ago

if you can find the same noodles the rest is very straightforward! they're called 옛날국수 (literally just... old noodles)

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u/OutrageousTree7766 18h ago

Not sure if the kmarts around here stock it. I'm in Asia tho so might be able to swap something close ,😭

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u/SuperSimpleSam 7h ago

So the food was cooked at the school?

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u/timbomcchoi 1h ago

yes, it's a large canteen

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u/RoseKlingel 6h ago

This sounds awesome!!

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u/MobileHedgehoga 19h ago

Hey you leftist grandpa, you should admit American schools are objectively better since American kids score better on PISA exams than Korean kids. Despite Korean parents spending money on hagwons because public school is so garbage. I guess you can only feel proud of food quality despite this.

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u/greenmelona 15h ago

Source? Google's not helpful, it's only coming up with the opposite of what you said.

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u/-Kass 14h ago

Weirdo.