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Comment by roel_v | Hacker News Reader

Where are you from? There are many places where warm lunches in school are not normal. (I'm specifically thinking about Belgium and the Netherlands here, but I don't think they're common anywhere in Europe outside of the UK). It's mostly a cost thing, I think.

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Wait, I'll google this...

Ah, here it goes: warm lunches: Finland, Spain, Denmark(?), Estonia, Lithuania, France, Italy, Sweden, UK, potentially others, not a complete list. [1]

p.s. Fun fact: Norwegian school lunches were supplied from Sweden during World War II, partly privately financed. Later, all public school lunches were discontinued, so most Norwegian students bring a packed lunch from home.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_meal

I don't think that list is really as black and white as that article makes it seem. I had conversations about this exact topic with friends from Spain and France (the things you talk about once you have children), and none of them had warm lunches at school. Of course I'm almost 40 years old, my friend are in that age bracket, so maybe it's different now, or maybe it depends on rural/urban or how well funded the schools are in other ways - but from what I understand, without it being a statistically sound survey, having full meals at primary and/or secondary school is not universal.

I have personally seen warm lunches in France in 3 out of three schools I visited. Locals treated it as something completely normal, complained about quality which seemed to me much higher then what I was used to.

I'm pretty sure that's outdated for Spain. According to various news reports (in Spanish), schools serve warm lunches, with most receiving pre-cooked food and heating it locally, while about 1/3 have full kitchens on premises.

I heard that warm lunches used to be common in Netherland in agricultural areas. They'd work in the field all morning, then have a hot meal, then work all afternoon, and have some bread in the evening.

With everybody working/going to school outside the home, the family dinner moved to the evening and people took sandwiches with them for lunch.

Germany too.

And Portugal.

Here in Albania (Europe) it's still a lifestyle thing - school is done by 1pm and lunch is taken at leisure with pleasure. It's a real joy.

I always had the option of warm lunch in school in Belgium (Hainaut, not really a rich part), maybe it's a regional thing.

I had warm lunch in high school (Norway, 1997). Granted, it was a private school.

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