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Round Table of the W4W: Lunches for Children Project

Sweet buns in custard sauce, tomato sauce with boiled beef, or Czech risotto. Do you remember your favorite school lunch when you were a child? The school cafeteria brings back nostalgic memories and school lunches remain a significant topic even today. What makes them so special? I feel that as parents, we sometimes experience the quality and preparation of school meals much more intensely than our children who personally visit the school cafeteria. Perhaps even more intensely than we experienced it ourselves as school-going children.

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Of course, times have changed, and the approach of today’s cafeterias is different. They strive to be more attractive to diners than in the past. They cook tastier and nutritionally balanced meals from home sources. But as children, we were more concerned about whether the food was within (any) norms or not when we got dumplings with plum jam and cottage cheese. It was one of the few dishes for which the line for seconds stretched across the entire cafeteria, and plates returned empty. Only as parents do we begin to realize that it’s not just about whether the lunch tastes good or not, but about the ingredients used, how nutritionally balanced they are, and whether their cost corresponds to the diversity of the components used. Paradoxically, COVID has taught us to appreciate school cafeterias. It’s not only a great help to parents but also a tremendous social education. Children socialize and acquire important eating habits through communal dining. They even resist obesity better than children who do not attend school cafeterias and indiscriminately consume what vending machines and store shelves offer them. Moreover, the Czech school cafeteria system is globally unique. Therefore, I was pleased to find that other people share a similar opinion. I had the opportunity to meet with them at the roundtable discussion of the ‘Lunches for Children’ project of the WOMEN FOR WOMEN nonprofit organization in the first week of March. The series of presentations raised many questions, and it was evident that not only parents but also the professional community had a real interest in the topic.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

Press release available for download.

Ivana Tykač,

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