VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A concerned mom in Richmond is demanding longer lunch periods, after she says her child comes home hungry day after day. When Judie Schneider picks up her son from school, she often finds him in a bad mood. “He’s often too exhausted and hungry to play after school,” she says. “He just says ‘I’m too hungry, I’m way too tired.’” She says that’s because her son’s Richmond elementary school divides lunchtime in two periods, with only 17 minutes for kids to eat. “Lining up at sinks to wash their hands, retrieving their lunch from the locker and then trying to sit down, open their lunch and eat – that’s 17 minutes,” she says. “I think a lot of adults would have a difficult time doing that.” Schneider says it’s just not enough time, and many kids come home with half-eaten lunch boxes. “They’re often hangry,” she says. “They’re having mood swings, anger outbursts, lethargy.” She’s now launched an online petition asking the provincial government, the ministry of education, and BC Teachers’ Federation to work together to come up with way to make sure kids can have a supervised 35-minutes lunch, without cutting into recess.
Discussion Question:
- Do you think it is enough time to digest your food?
- What are some different lunches you’ve eaten or know of from different countries?
- Does the lunches above follow the healthy eating guide that we learned at Fortius? (50% fruits and veggies, 25% grains, 25% meat & alternatives)
- What do you normally bring for lunches? Does this follow the healthy eating guidelines?
I think 20 minutes is enough time to eat. It’s literally just putting food in your mouth and chewing. In Malaysia, most people have noodles or soup for breakfast and rice/noodles/fish/meat/fruit/veggies for lunch and dinner. By fruit i don’t mean apples and oranges because those are imported. Usually it’s passionfruit, mango, wax apples, and jackfruit. Some of the meals above do follow the fortius healthy eating guide, but I think it’s 50% carbs instead of veggies. My lunch varies from sandwiches to dumplings to pasta to soup, but i don’t think they have 50% veggies in ’em…
1 No I read this article where it said that digesting food takes either 30 min or 3 h (I forgot which)
2 I don’t really know maybe sushi from Japan?
3 some of them. not all
4 bagels fried rice sushi other stuff like that
1) yes, i think that the time you mentioned is a good enough time. people shouldn’t be able to eat slower than that.(i’m not saying to eat as fast as you can). if you eat slow you are probably not focusing on eating enough or like talking to a person.
2) most of the lunches are balanced and look good. but some countries can not have meat and alternatives because of their culture. I think that Finland has the best meal out of all. it has all the things you need in the dish.
3) i don’t have a full course meal for lunch. my mom usually packs me a sandwich or something. but after school i have a proper lunch. i would eat meatballs, or stir fry or something
1) I honestly think some people night need more time to eat their lunch,because the kindergarteners are slow and they have a smaller stomach then the older kids. Their stomach needs time to digest and some older kids are fast at digesting their food and some are slow at digesting their food. And some students does not really have a lot of time to eat because some might have to help the little ones to finish before they can eat.
2) I know there is Sushi and Fast food and e.t.c. I`m pretty sure everyone knows Haha!
3) The food guides are just like Fortius because they mostly tough us Healthy food and unhealthy food.
4) I mostly bring food! that`s why t`s called FOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!
WOW! Only 17 minutes to eat your lunch, that’s outrageous!!! For me, I need 35 minutes to an hour. The mother is brilliant for starting a petition. After I watched the video I was amazed, especially the part where this country gets up to two hours for lunch (surely no one can be late to class with that much time to eat!)
1. Obviously, 17 minutes is NOT enough to eat lunch, a sane person would know that isn’t enough time.
2.Where I used to live in the Caribbean, we had this small shop where we could buy the sweetest snacks and drinks you can think of for the lowest prices (i.e soda, these huge gummy lollipops and more.) You can also buy your lunches there (i.e fries, wedges and CHICKEN these include a variety of condiments with it. Parents can drop of their lunches of as well, *sigh* now that I think of it I miss it very much. As you can tell, we didn’t really follow the healthy eating guide (SHHH!!)
3.It depends, if your parents brought the lunch then they probably include veggies, fruits and etc. If you bought your own lunch then probably not because the majority of kids would buy anything sweet.
4.We bring all sorts of things like chicken, jeloff rice, fried rice, roti, chicken, soup and lots more!
Wow! That video made me very hungry!
In my opinion, 17 minutes is definitely not enough time to eat lunch. Sometimes it takes me an hour to eat my food! Also, it is not enough time to digest my food either. My mom told me that it usually takes 30 minutes to digest my food before I can do any exercise.
Some different countries that I had lunch in our Hong Kong, Japan, and Macau. In Hong Kong, they usually eat some instant noodles, duck, goose, or street food if they are in a rush. In Japan at the train station, there are many shops that serve food like dumplings, Japanese pancakes, rice balls ( my favorite ). If you go to any fancy restaurants you can get some sushi, ramen, or udon. In Macau, there are a lot of things at Senado Square like a pork chop on a piece of bread and many more.
I think that most of the lunches in the video have a well-balanced plate. And I think that I would eat most of the lunches because they look so good and are very balanced.
What I usually bring or lunches is rice, protein, and vegetables to get a balanced breakfast. Overall I think that my lunches are pretty balanced.
1) i don’t think that that is enough time to digest food. i think that we should have at least half an hour (30 minutes)
2) i have eaten crepes for lunch in France, that was pretty cool.
3) i think most of the lunches should match up pretty well to the food guides
4) i usually bring pasta or rice for lunch, with either eggs and peas in the rice or beef and mushrooms. i think it had all of the food groups, but i’m not that sure about that proportions or percentages
1. I do not think 17 minutes is enough to digest your food. I think you need at least twenty-five minutes.
2. I went to India when I was four and for lunch I had prantha but besides that I’m not too sure.
3. I think most of the lunches that they showed us were mostly balanced and one thing I noticed was that many people have soup for lunch.
4. I normally bring a container of raw veggies for lunch but sometimes I bring stir fry, soup, or pasta.
1) u do not think 17 mins is enough for eating food, because i think people should have the right to eat at their on pace instead of having a clock ticking. I would love it if Richmond gave kids 30 mins which his more than enough for great food eating.
2) I know France is lucky where you have 2 hours for lunch break which is amazing!! they have amazing food to so i would move there any day.
3)Well most of them are on point some are 10 percent higher or lower.
4) I bring food that vary from chicken to fish to salad it follows the guide lines pretty ok
i think 20 minutes for lunch is good because we cant take a lunch time so long, someone is busy with the job, do a work so they gonna late that why just take 20 minutes for lunch
1. It takes around 20 to 30 minutes to digest your food. so it is not enough time.
2. I am really not sure what food goes into lunch from other countries.
3. The majority of them follow the food guide.
4. I usually end up with an unbalanced sandwich.