http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-photos-taste-school-lunches-around-world-0AP PHOTOS: A TASTE OF SCHOOL LUNCHES AROUND WORLD
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP
— May. 6, 2014 5:49 PM EDT
SEATTLE (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to make American school lunches healthier by replacing greasy pizza and french fries with whole grains, low fat protein, fresh fruit and vegetables.
The Associated Press helps you compare her efforts in the United States with what kids are eating around the globe by sending photographers to see what kids in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America ate for lunch this week.
The new American standards are giving kids in the United States a taste of the good life already experienced by school children around the world. Most countries put a premium on feeding school children a healthy meal at lunchtime.
Many kids go home to eat lunch with their families or bring a lunch cooked by their parents.
Although few schools sell lunch, snacks are available around the world. In many places those snacks are as unhealthy as treats in the United States: fried doughnuts in Mali and Pakistan, candy in the West Bank, fried chicken nuggets in France.
American children are more likely to eat a lunch made in a school cafeteria, although other countries are starting to adopt this practice as more mothers go to work outside the home.
FRANCE
In France, lunch is an art form: hot, multi-course and involving vegetables. While their mothers were at work Tuesday, children in Lambersart in northern France were served ratatouille, salmon, rice, a chunk of baguette and an orange.
A school lunch is laid out on a tray at the Anne Franck school in Lambersart, northern France. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler)
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