School lunches in Japan tend to reflect the country’s homogenous food culture and include rice, rice-flour bread or noodles, soup, a main dish of fish or meat, one or two side dishes that are heavy on the veggies and legumes, milk, and, on special occasions only, dessert (cake at Christmas, star jellies for the Milky Way Lovers Festival, sweet rice cakes for Children’s Day, etc.). There are daily efforts to utilize locally produced rice, veggies, fish and milk. Attention is also paid to seasonally appropriate items like wild vegetable tempura in spring, summer vegetable curry in summer, sweet potatoes in the fall, and yellowtail cutlets in the winter.
Traditional Japanese food is some of the healthiest stuff in the world, and school lunches exhibit a serious effort to maintain that cultural palate. In Japan, many people believe that the flavors you desire most throughout your life are the ones you experience in the first three years. Stay-at-home parents and nursery schools that take care of very young children pay special attention to serving healthy, natural flavors without extra salt and sugar (i.e. plain rice porridge, fresh fruits, dried sweet potatoes, vegetable based crackers, barley tea, and so on).
Nutritionists are not opposed to utilizing an opportunity to try dishes from around the world, though. Sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup often inspire menu planners to include famous foods of other countries, like Russian borscht or Brazilian beans and rice.
In the US, students can usually pick one of two entrees, usually a protein/carb mash-up like pizza pockets, a hamburger or pasta. They can choose from chocolate, strawberry or plain milk, and some schools with a high percentage of lactose-intolerant kids provide orange juice instead. Raw vegetables like lettuce, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and celery are offered on most days and usually with a choice of dressings. A side dish like baked beans may be found, too. Dessert comes in the form of fruit or fruit-based sweets like cinnamon applesauce. American lunches sometimes include store-bought bagged items like chips and cookies.