To produce this series, Sweetgreen studied local government cafeteria standards around the world. They supplemented this by scouring school lunch photos taken by children and posted to Tumblr. With this information, they styled plates of food that represent a typical school lunch in different countries. In France, a child might be served a cut of beef, steamed carrots and beans, apples and cheese. In South Korea, there’s kimchi, fish, rice and vegetables. In Greece, there’s yogurt, chicken, orzo and vegetables. Each of these lunches are informed by standards and photographic anecdotes, but they represent the available resources in each country. In the United States, the standard shown here is chicken nuggets, a fruit cup with sweeteners, peas and potatoes and a big chocolate chip cookie. It’s tough to say how accurate each international dish is, but the American version looks quite familiar to this writer. Sweetgreen is a Washington D.C.-based restaurant chain that provides fast, nutritious dining options to their guests. They also operate a healthy eating education program that aims to teach kids about nutrition. This series is its own kind of education, an eye-opening look at the world standards for school lunches. Political perspective aside, this series sure makes you want to be a schoolkid for a day in some of these countries, doesn’t it?
School Lunch PhotosAround the World – Food Photography by Sweetgreen | Gallery
