Eating at School

Normally people think that all Scandinavian countries are almost similar, and I have always been asked from Norwegians that what differences I have observed between Sweden and Norway, same question is asked by Swedish people about Norwegians. The story is not different if you are in Denmark. In fact there are plenty of differences in all these countries but I am going to discuss the eating habits from school and I will compare it with Pakistani system in the end.

When I was in Sweden I read an article that about the food in school. Swedish kids get lunch at school since they start it and they get it for free until they graduate from the college (Called gymnasium). Even after graduation some people go to their college for eating, if it is nearby to save some money. Since they get it for free therefore on lunch tables most of the time they are complaining about the food. Therefore in almost all cities there are so many restaurants that offer lunch buffets. Because eating outside home becomes a part of their behaviour. All major companies have nice restaurants inside and some people who want to eat in the town go out of the office and eat there. You can get a whole catalogue of the weekly menus of lunch in the whole town. Also in the university’s website they publish the menu for lunch. When it is lunch time there are very long lines for getting the food. And the restaurants get very crowded. Coffee is also a part of Swedish life. Coffee breaks are the best way to socialize with Swedish people. You can ask almost everyone for a cup of coffee because they take these breaks often and even in the evenings a lot of people hang out at coffee houses. In Sweden you can get food from all parts of the world, because they travel a lot.

In Norway it is very different. In Norway parents prepare the lunch for kids before they drop them to school. It is called Matpakke. Therefore it becomes behaviour; most of the people in Norway are always equipped with the food, when they go out. One reason can be the prices of food in Norway. It is very expensive to eat outside here. If it is lunch time and you are in the university’s cafeteria, don’t worry you will get plenty of space. Even you will see a lot of people eating in their lunch boxes at the cafeteria. They have microwaves for the people to make the food warm. If you are travelling then matpakke is a good solution as well.

In Pakistan bringing lunch from home is considered as a childish behaviour and buying from school’s canteen is considered as a cool thing. Small children bring their food from home but also get a lot of pocket money to buy candies and other stuff. When they grow up they stop bringing lunch with them. One reason can be that due to house wives system our schools close between 1:00 or 2:00 PM and you can eat lunch at home. Normally the lunch time is between 1:00 to 3:00 unlike Scandinavia where it is around 12:00 PM. The quality of food is extremely bad at most of the canteens in schools, colleges and universities due to poor food regulations but still all the kids want to spend as much money as they can at these canteens. Most of the students do not even know how to cook and since they eat three warm meals a day therefore the sandwiches and fruits are not that common. Tea is drunk like coffee in Scandinavia. There is no free food for students anywhere from schools, colleges or universities. The children are never happy with their pocket money, they always want more than they have and it is the story of every family, in the morning kids are asking for more and more. When people enter universities they stop eating candies and when they start working they start bringing food from home. Because when they start earning, they seldom spend it on low quality food outside and prefer to take home made lunch at work. And one reason behind that is long working hours as well.