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The story
A photo of a Sapporo elementary school lunch, sent in by a viewer to Hokkaido Television (HTB), sparked a news segment on parents’ suspicions that portions have gotten smaller since school lunch fees became free. The resulting 5ch thread filled up with posts comparing the photo to Showa-era (1926–1989) school lunches, alongside parents’ candid opinions like “we’d rather pay and get a decent amount and quality.” Meanwhile, Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto explained at a press conference that “the nutritional standards and portion sizes haven’t changed before or after the fee waiver” — and the gap between parents’ lived experience and the city’s official explanation became the thread’s central point of debate.
This is a photo of a Sapporo school lunch sent to HTB by a viewer.
Parents are raising questions: has the portion size gotten smaller since elementary school lunches became free?
This is a photo of the school lunch served to a 6th grader in Sapporo.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If you want a proper meal, pay for it.
Yes. I want to pay. Please let us pay.
I'll pay, so just feed them properly.
I'll pay. Most parents feel the same way.
The idealized image
https://image-tm.s2mr.jp/i/original/1791447702367.jpeg
The reality was this
https://image-tm.s2mr.jp/i/original/1791447717982.jpeg
It wasn't quite this bad.
Also, I don't remember vegetables like these.
I never liked raw vegetables so I don't recall them being served much, but there was a nutritionist planning things, right?
There was curry in there too — or was that just a drink?
"School lunches have set standards for how much nutrition and volume are needed depending on the student's grade level. Those standards haven't changed before or after the lunch fee waiver, so the portion size, menu, and nutritional content haven't changed either."
Hmm, so are we just imagining it?
Maybe the portions were actually excessive back when we were kids?
This guy's already announced he's not running in next year's Sapporo mayoral election, so he probably doesn't care anymore.
I remember whale kara-age (deep-fried whale meat) piled high on a single plate.
There was so much that nobody could finish it, so the leftovers piled up too.
But they made you stay until you finished everything, so a lot of kids hid their bread and milk in their desks until it went moldy.
There's basically no demand for whale meat anymore anyway, so they might as well put it in school lunches.
The whale meat you occasionally see at the supermarket is actually pretty pricey — more expensive than beef.
Maybe the whale catch has gone down. These days it's probably too expensive for the unit price to work out.
Anyway, whale used to show up constantly in school lunches back then — it was like "ugh, whale again?"
When the lunch fee waiver was decided, the view that parents should keep paying on top of the waiver was a minority opinion.
The lunches we have now are what most of the public actually wanted.
Even though people warned quality would suffer with the waiver alone, parents were still thrilled about getting free lunches.
If they do, cut that budget instead.
Hokkaido has a whopping hundred assembly members. They need to cut that in half.
There isn't a single prefectural elementary or middle school in Hokkaido, though.
People keep saying tax revenue is at an all-time high, but specifically, how big is the actual budget surplus?
Well, the national debt hits an all-time high every year too.
Right.
If you think money just falls from the sky, you're dead wrong.
Every resource in this world is finite.
Tell that to the LDP lawmakers.
[Aichi Asian Games] Vegetables with 3 pieces of chicken… "You expect us to compete on this?" Shocking meal at the competition venue, posted on social media by Thailand's coach ★4
https://hayabusa9.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/mnewsplus/1789884655/
i.imgur.com/fv0VE1t.jpeg
i.imgur.com/E1COlDE.jpeg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPwDWVxbEAAInG3.jpg
Background and Key Points of Debate
Free school lunches are a policy spreading across municipalities nationwide funded by national government subsidies, and this thread touches on the fact that “this fiscal year’s waiver is funded using national subsidies.” The waiver itself isn’t meant to change nutritional or menu standards, and Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto said as much at his press conference, stating “the standards haven’t changed before or after the waiver.” In other words, there’s officially no reason for portions to have shrunk — yet parents are making concrete complaints like “the portions are too small” and “my child comes home hungry,” and this discrepancy became the thread’s focal point. Without speculating beyond the facts, it’s worth noting a structural point for readers: if food costs rise due to inflation while subsidy funding stays fixed, the actual amount and quality served could change even under unchanged official standards. Several commenters in the thread said they’d rather pay and get better quality, revealing that for many parents, “free” doesn’t automatically mean “satisfactory.” At the same time, there was plenty of nostalgic back-and-forth comparing it to Showa-era lunches, mixing in questions about how much of that memory is rosy exaggeration versus reality.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Shrinking School Lunches? Rising Complaints of “Too Little Food” and “Kids Coming Home Hungry” — Behind the Scenes in Sapporo.”
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