Dinner Is Served: Finnish School Meals as Another Dimension of Reality

Finland is the first country, which introduced free school lunches for all students back in 1948. Realizing that the food culture is formed from childhood, critically influences the quality of life and life expectancy of each person and the well-being of the entire nation, Finns pay a lot of attention to teaching children about healthy nutrition and healthy eating habits. This is a holistic pedagogical tool that goes far beyond a school lunch.

Read in this article:

• how many calories a Finnish school lunch has;
• what products it consists of;
• how to meet individual nutrition needs;
• how children are taught a food culture.

Eat and learn together

«You need to teach either for life or for exams. We choose the first one,» this is what is often said by Finnish teachers. Nutrition is therefore part of learning and preparation for adulthood.

Nutrition is not just about eating food, it is about being able to choose and combine products, know what is good for the body and what is harmful, understand what food is made of, how it is cooked and how leftovers are disposed of. Only with this information, a person will be able to make a balanced decision on how often and in what quantities he will eat meat, and if he chooses a vegetarian diet, then what products and in what quantities should replace it, so that the body receives all the necessary substances. 

Nutrition science forms a multidisciplinary learning unit that integrates the content of several subjects and goals of food education: cultural awareness, sustainability, communication, marketing and service, product design.

Free meals up to and including grade 9 in Finnish schools are regulated by the legislation, national and local programs as well as national recommendations. Marianna Manninen, Education Counsellor from the Finnish National Agency for Education, has shared the main documents that this agency has developed and implemented to regulate nutrition in basic and high schools.

School meals, which are based on these recommendations, cover one-third of a student’s total daily energy need on the average. It means that another two-thirds should cover breakfast, snacks and dinner at home.

Estimated energy value of a school lunch by age:

Size of portion	Class/age	Energy value of lunch in kcal
S	From preparatory grade to grade 2 (6-9 years old)	550
M	Grade 3 to 6 (10-13 years old)	700
L	Grades 7 to 9 (14-16 years old)	850

New menus are developed each year, and when choosing products, students’ feedback and wishes are taken into account. Parents or school staff can file a complaint if the quality of food services is not adequate.

Dishes to be chosen as part of a school lunch:

Food category	Recommendations	Options
Vegetables, fruit and berries	A wide choice, depending on the season	In a different form, for each meal. Preference is given to raw colorful vegetables, berries and fruit that can be served: – whole or sliced; – like pieces added in pasta; – in the form of a smoothie; – as a spread/paste on bread; – as ingredients of compotes made from fresh berries. Vegetables are widely used for making pies, pancakes, cheesecakes and sandwiches.
Legumes (peas, beans and lentils)	A wide choice	Bean paste (hummus, etc.) as a spread on bread.
Bread and cereals	Whole grain bread (fiber content of at least 6g/100g for fresh bread and 10g/100g for crusty bread) with a low salt content (fresh bread with maximum salt content – 0.7g/100g, crusty bread – 1.2g/100g)	Per each meal in different forms. Preference is given to whole grain products. Cereals can be served with berries and fruit added. Bran and oatmeal are added to dough, yogurt, and smoothies.
Pastry	Products with a low content of fat, sugar and salt	Preference over puff pastry and shortbread dough is given to yeast, which is used to make buns and pies with berry/fruit filling (like sweet pastries). Karelian pies and low-fat pies with vegetable filling.
Milk/milk drinks and buttermilk   Liquid dairy products/ fermented milk products	Low-fat food enriched with vitamin D. Low-fat or with a maximum fat content of 1%, unsweetened or with a low content of sugar. The maximum sugar content in yogurt and kefir is 10g/100g, yogurt – 12g/ 100g	Preference is given to regular yogurt, yogurt or cottage cheese. Among the flavored ones, choose yoghurts with a low sugar content or without sugar.
Cheese	Low-fat cheese (maximum fat content – 17%), low-salt cheese (up to 1.2 g/100g)	Maximum once a week.
Fish	Different types of fish	Fish-based pastes/spreads, Burgers (cutlet Burgers, – Ed.).
Meat products and sausages	Food, which is low in fat, sugar and salt	Maximum once a week.
Eggs		They are used in cooking, for baking, as a filling and spread on bread or as a side dish.
Fat spreads	Margarine with a minimum fat content of 60%	As a spread on bread.
Nuts, almonds and seeds	Different varieties (except for individual allergic reactions)	Maximum 15-30g/day.

Learn to choose food and take care of your health

The meals in all schools are offered in the form of a buffet service, which starts with cold meals with vegetables and salads, various toppings and dressings followed by counters where hot dishes can be heated, and at the end bread, butter and drinks can be selected. Children are offered only healthy food, there are no fried dishes (instead, baking is used).

The emphasis is on vegetarian dishes, fresh vegetables and salads (usually six salads to choose from, which children themselves sprinkle with oil (olive, corn, soy, linseed) or sauce (there are also several varieties offered). Salads can contain pieces of pineapple, tangerines and be sprinkled with cheese. 

Meat is eaten regularly, but not every day. If there is soup on the menu, then this is a vegetable soup with or without meat with no cereals added. Brown rice is cooked in ovens with a small amount of water.

Sweets and drinks with added sugar are prohibited. Even on your birthday, you can’t bring cakes to school. But birthday boys and girls are congratulated with songs and postcards, and children play games together.

Schools and day care centres (kindergartens) and a vocational college in Helsinki apply a six-week rotation to their main and vegetarian menus. The set of dishes and decoration of cafeterias are changed depending on the season and holidays. There are also so-called «culinary themes» that introduce students to international food and customs from different countries.

Children receive instructions on how to fill a plate:

• fill half of the plate with vegetables (lettuce, fresh or cooked vegetables and/or berries/fruit);
• fill 1/4 plate with potatoes, cereals, brown rice or pasta;
• fill the remaining 1/4 plate with legumes or other plant-based protein sources, fish, poultry, eggs or meat.

After that you need to:

• drizzle vegetables with oil or oil-based salad dressing;
• choose whole grain bread and add a little butter or margarine (at least 60% fat content);
• choose skimmed milk, kefir or compote;
• be sure to take fresh drinking water.

You need to put exactly as much as you are capable of eating. You can always take a supplement.

A full and balanced vegan lunch also consists of three parts, but is distributed somewhat differently:

• 1/3 of the plate consists of beans, peas or lentils;
• 1/3 – root vegetables, potatoes or cereals;
• 1/3 – fresh or cooked vegetables, berries, fruit.

Fresh vegetables are seasoned with vegetable oil or a sauce of your choice, vegetable-based margarine is added to bread, soy or oat milk is offered among drinks, and nuts are added if you don’t have an allergy.

Examples of vegan food: beetroot patties, potatoes, chickpeas, side dish, bean salad, vegetables, oil dressing and crusty bread with vegan margarine, soy milk.

The recommendations are designed to support educational institutions in offering balanced, properly organized and controlled school meals. The Finnish National Food Council considers it extremely important that these recommendations are used in all municipalities as the key criterion for the quality of food and the standard of service specified in food service contracts or tenders.

The fact is that school lunches are not prepared in schools, but are provided mainly by catering companies. Natalia Boriichuk-Palaziuk, a professional cook and mother of two children, has had a three-month internship at one of these companies – Sodex:

«Sometimes, if a school has a large kitchen, it also cooks for other schools. The company I used to work for provided lunches to 2.5–3 thousand people. One cook usually prepared hot dishes, the other one – salads, the third one was responsible for dietary nutrition and the fourth baked bread and bakery products. My working day started at 7 a.m., and at 9 a.m. everything had to be ready, weighed and packed, because the car was already going to deliver food to schools, kindergartens and hospitals.»

Enjoy and take your time

Special attention in Finland is paid to the pleasure of eating together, which is achieved through communication, a calm atmosphere, classic serving and attractive design of cafeterias.

Each class comes to the cafeteria at a particular time, and although due to the pandemic, some children eat in the cafeteria and others in the classroom, at least 30 minutes are allocated directly for eating, plus 10-15 minutes – for staying outdoors. In general, this is a 45-minute break.

The importance of pedagogical leadership in nutrition, joint and unhurried eating and development of good manners is emphasized: 

«Food culture is taught here, starting with kindergarten, where three-year-olds are immediately allowed to use a knife and fork. At first, I was worried about whether it was safe, but my daughters quickly learned to use appliances, and they do it better than I do!» – Natalia laughs.

Now her twin daughters Alina and Arina study in the 3rd grade of Martinlaakso school in Vantaa and say that once a month they have a special lesson on food competence:

«At this lesson they speak about the benefits and pleasure of food, how and when to eat right, how to treat your body, about friendship and communication. They also tell us about the environment and a responsible attitude toward it.»

Practice an individual approach

There are students with different physical and mental abilities in the same class. They perform tasks of different complexity and compare their progress of today with that of yesterday. There is a special menu for children with food allergies or endocrine diseases (such as diabetes).

«First, parents write an application, which is accompanied by a certificate from a doctor,» says Natalia. «Then a separate cook will prepare food for the child individually, taking into account all the needs and characteristics. On the school’s website, such children choose dishes from the list provided for them for the week ahead.»

For communication between teachers and parents, Wilma has been put in place – a special mobile app. Teachers also use it for registering children’s achievements, cases when they come late to school and behavior (all this can only be seen by the student and his parents).

In the app, you can also view the menu for the next week:

7.12 Tuesday	TODAY Lunch: Pancakes with spinach L, mashed potatoes LG, lingonberry jam MG Vegetarian lunch: vegetable noodle pan L
8.12 Wednesday	Lunch: meat soup MSG, oatmeal, fresh vegetables, fruit, cheese Vegetarian lunch: sweet potato soup MG KM SO VEG, oatmeal bread, slice of cheese, fresh vegetables, fruit
9.12 Thursday	Lunch: Rainbow salmon with potatoes LG KM SO Vegetarian lunch: «corrida» (we failed to find a Ukrainian equivalent of the dish, – Ed.) L KM G
10.12 Friday	Lunch: chicken dumplings M KM S, whole grain cereal MG, curry sauce L Vegetarian lunch: carrot dumplings LG KM, whole grain cereal MG, curry sauce L

Abbreviations:

• M – milk-free;
• L – lactose-free;
• VL – low lactose levels;
• K – eggs-free;
• N – beef-free;
• S – pork-free;
• G – suitable for the celiac disease diet, gluten-free.

How is it here?

In Ukraine, free meals are provided only in primary schools, that is, up to grade 4. We don’t have catering everywhere, and only some schools have a buffet.

«I think not all Ukrainian children are ready for a buffet,» says Olena Nevmerzhytska, a mother with many children from Kyiv. «A lot of children will choose potatoes and buns, ignoring salads as they are not interested in proper and healthy food. Little attention is paid to this at lessons.»

Only first-graders have a 30-minute break between classes. From grade 2, the maximum lunch break is reduced to 25 minutes, and in secondary school it is only 20 minutes. Sometimes older children do not even have time to wait for their turn and return to class hungry.

«But if we compare it with previous years, the changes for the better are quite noticeable,» Olena continues. «The food has become more diverse and looks better. If in the past a child could be given burnt pancakes or an inedible cereal, now it is not the case.»

Olena considers the lack of benefits for large families to be the main problem of school meals. Considering that the cost of one lunch in Kyiv school No. 46 is UAH 43, with four students she would have to spend UAH 3,500.00 per month only on school meals. Therefore, her elder children have to bring food from home.

«Another challenge is access to drinking water,» the woman says. «Because of the coronavirus, the fountains were turned off, and children are chased out of the cafeteria at our school, when they try to fill a bottle with water. If parents do not buy water for the entire class at their own expense, children have to bring one more bottle from home, and then the backpack becomes heavy.»

The same situation with drinking water is in school 173 in Kyiv, attended by children of Maria Fedorenko, the nutritionist and food consultant:

«The sanitary service has banned coolers in classrooms, and water fountains do not function due to quarantine. It turns out that children should either buy non-carbonated water in the dining room, or bring it with them.»

At the same time, Maria is rather satisfied with the food at this school. 

«Our school has won a public budget allocation for the renovation of catering facilities. After the renovation, our administration has selected a contractor on a tender basis that hired cooks. Food is cooked in school, and my children enjoy eating there. In terms of fried food, they have Kyiv cutlets or chops, but I don’t mind, because children like them. All other food, both in terms of energy composition and nutrients, meets schoolchildren’s needs in principle, although I would limit the sale of buns.»

According to her, nutrition in Ukrainian schools is critically dependent on the administration of these schools.

I know schools that successfully use a specially adapted collection of recipes by Yevhen Klopotenko, and I know schools that resist innovations, mainly because school cooks do not want to complicate their lives. 

Maria Fedorenko emphasizes that the food culture is formed in the family and considers it necessary to work not only with children, but also with parents:

«My daughter said that only one lesson was dedicated to healthy nutrition at the lessons of health – this is a catastrophe! And although from time to time I am invited to schools where I tell children about healthy food, my words will not have any impact if they constantly eat cookies, sweets and chips or drink carbonated sweet drinks at home.»

Another drawback underlined by Maria is the lack of a special menu in Ukrainian schools for children with food allergies.

«Being aware that such changes require time and money, I believe that the tentative solution could be to promote the use of lunchboxes. If children don’t laugh at those who bring food from home, if they have enough time to go to the dining room together and eat while communicating, the situation will become much better.»

This material was prepared for the Learning Together project and published on the NUS portal in 2021.

This document was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

Images: «Eating and learning together – recommendations for school meals»