School Lunch

There are a lot of great things to love about teaching at my schools, but one of my very favorites is lunch. For just under $3 per plate school lunches on Jeju Island all made from 100% organic products. Most of the produce is farmed on Jeju, and some of it is even grown at school.

The lunches always have three staples; rice, soup, and kimchi. Typically there is some kind of meat either to the side or in the soup, but it is never much and it's always easy to pick the meat out. One day, the wonderful lunch ladies at Kama even went to the extra effort to set aside a portion of rice for me before they added the meat to it. It made my day that they thought of me.

Every Wednesday is special lunch day. These lunches are more food, use more expensive ingredients, and harder to prepare. Special main dishes may include Bibim Bap, chicken noodle soup, stew, or fancy rice. The special side dishes could be fruit, juice, or homemade vegetable doughnut. Radish kimchi is always served on special lunch day.

School lunches in Jeju feature a lot of delicious fresh fish products. Fish is only served in the United States schools in the form of reheated fish sticks which were previously fried and frozen. I was so surprised the first time I recieved crab in my soup. It wasn't even a special lunch day, but there it was, big pieces of crab still in the shell. I had no idea how to eat it without tools. My kids showed me that I should just bite into it, suck out what I can, and discard the rest. The waste still has plenty of meat in it, and all I could think was "Crab is so expensive!".

The only complaint I have about school lunch, and Korean food in general, is that it’s really salty. I’m always thirsty despite drinking several liters of water. Korean food is probabyl doing bad things to my blood pressure. In the summer the extra salt may be helpful since you lose so much sodium on hot, humid days. Although, between the salt and the sweat, I’m just not sure how to stay hydrated when summer comes.

Historically the Korean diet is really healthy, but it has taken a turn toward the processed in the last several years. Everything is sweet here, including chips. Many things are fried as well. Obesity is definitely on the rise in Korea, just as it is in every developing country.

The most surprising recent change in the Korean diet is the inclusion of milk. Nobody my age and older drinks milk, but somehow special interests have convinced the government to give milk to all the school children every morning. Both of my schools were confused that I don’t like milk, and don’t consider it healthy. Many colleagues and students thought that everyone from the United States drinks several cups of milk a day.

(Please click on The Cancer Project to learn briefly about why dairy should be consumed with moderation. Click here for the long version. Try here to search brief articles on your favorite topics.)