Why did the school lunch menus in Taipei, China disappear?
Online transparency of elementary school campus lunch menus: New Taipei City only about 20%, Taipei City less than 10%!
Where can you find lunch menus
"Didn't they say you can find campus lunch menus online? I searched for ages and didn't see them..."
"How is that possible? Let me help you look... Huh! There really aren't any. What's going on?"
"I told you they can't be found! Even typing in the keyword 'campus lunch' doesn't work..."
"But look at this other school's official website. The homepage clearly marks a lunch section, and when you click in, besides listing the menu and ingredients, there are even photos."
"Isn't the difference way too big? So where exactly am I supposed to find the menu?"
Big differences between elementary schools in Taipei and New Taipei
Taking the nearly 380,000 elementary school students in Taipei City and New Taipei City as an example, do parents actually understand, or how do they find out, what their children eat at school from Monday to Friday? The Homemaker United Foundation Environmental Protection Fund conducted a survey of online campus lunch information for 153 elementary schools in Taipei City and 213 elementary schools in New Taipei City, judged mainly on four items: "homepage link," "menu published," "ingredients listed" and "photos posted." The results found that conditions in New Taipei City were generally better than in Taipei City.
The survey results showed that 39 elementary schools in New Taipei City met the transparency requirements for all four items - "homepage link," "menu published," "ingredients listed" and "photos posted" - accounting for about 20% of the city's elementary schools. Among the 153 elementary schools in Taipei City, the leading city, only 11 schools met these four standards, about 7.2% of the city's elementary schools. Generally speaking, New Taipei City's information transparency performance was better than Taipei City's in all four items; not only did it exceed 50% in the three items of "homepage link," "menu published" and "photos posted," but the rate of having a campus lunch information link on the homepage was close to 80%.
| Survey results on online transparency of campus lunch information at elementary schools in Taipei City and New Taipei City | |||||
| Taipei City (total: 153) | Homepage link | Menu published | Ingredients listed | Photos posted | All four |
| 58 | 73 | 37 | 20 | 11 | |
| 37.9% | 47.7% | 24.2% | 13.1% | 7.2% | |
| New Taipei City | 162 | 121 | 63 | 111 | 39 |
| 76.1% | 56.8% | 29.6% | 52.1% | 18.3% | |
| Survey period: Taipei City 2013/3/5~12 New Taipei City 2013/3/12~19 Surveyor: Homemaker United Foundation Environmental Protection Fund | |||||
The importance of menu transparency
The Homemaker United Foundation Environmental Protection Fund has cared about the campus lunch issue since 2005, and the transparency of "menu" information has always been a focus of the foundation's continued attention. Not only can it be used to check whether there is too much processed food and fried food, it can also be used to observe whether schoolchildren are getting sufficiently balanced nutrition and appropriate calories.
When searching online for campus lunch menus, the Homemaker United Foundation found all kinds of problems, which are very likely troubles encountered by many parents as well. For example: on some school homepages, no campus lunch information can be found at all; some schools publish menus that are already out of date; some simply give a notice saying, "Our school provides meals together with other schools, so please check a certain webpage," and leave it at that. In addition, cases where the official website directs you to an off-campus blog or directly to a supplier's website, and you have to go around in a big circle before getting the menu, are also common; or after downloading the material, dish names like "Golden Red-End Stir-Fry" and "Chanson Corn" appear that leave you baffled, making it hard to understand from the text what the dishes actually are. Of course, there are also cases where no matter what search method is used, no information can be found at all.
You may ask, is such a survey meaningful? Before answering this question, please first recall whether you have ever searched online for a good restaurant. Given that this is now an era when, for eating out, everyone first searches online for bloggers' tasting reviews, food photos and price lists before deciding whether to visit, why is campus lunch information - which concerns the growth and health of elementary schoolchildren - so opaque, yet we still turn a blind eye?
If the campus lunch information for the school your child attends cannot be found quickly, please write an EMAIL or call the school's relevant department directly, turning your concern for your child's health into the most direct action!
Photo source in this article: New Taipei City Guashan Elementary School website www.gsps.ntpc.edu.tw