The most commonly heard complaint about boxed lunches bought from outside vendors is that they contain too much deep-fried and heavily condimented food. In years past there were several fatal food poisoning cases due to contaminated pork. Subsequent investigations showed schoolchildren had been poisoned by unscrupulous caterers buying meat from sick animals. This caused widespread alarm.

Because big and profitable school lunch contracts are not easy to obtain, some caterers have secured contracts through corrupt practices. In some cases, for example, caterers have obtained seats on school lunch committees by virtue of someone on their payroll being a parent at the school; in other instances, they have bribed school officials to secure lunch contracts; and in some localities, all lunch contracts are in the hands of a small number of suppliers.

The coastal region of Taichung County was recently hit by mass food poisoning outbreaks in eight elementary and middle schools. A single supplier had been delivering up to 6592 meals a day to 17 elementary and secondary schools. Although allowing a single contractor to supply an entire school district eases administrative and cost burdens, when something goes wrong the consequences can be catastrophic.

Because of parents' concerns about the quality of food supplied by private vendors, in recent years a number of education bureaus and health departments have begun offering guidance to vendors and consumers. For example, five years ago Taipei City Health Department promoted a "Healthy Lunch Box"; it has now issued an "OK" certification for boxed lunches. To qualify to bid for school lunch contracts, vendors must meet health, safety, and nutrition standards. Once awarded a contract, they are subject to inspections and assessments.

Little helpers bring out dishes for their classmates. There's no room for being finicky at school. In recent years, the nutritionists of a number of schools have been trying to change the poor dietary practices of children by creating a favorable atmosphere through having classmates eat together and set each other an example. Pictured here are children at Taipei City's Jinxing Elementary School. kuang/tr. by Paul Frank)

Unhealthy fare

Caterers' equipment can be inspected and regulated, but does that mean the lunches they supply are nutritious? Chen Ching-ju, a nutritionist in Taipei City's school lunch program, says there are reasons why boxed lunches tend to be deep-fried and heavy on the meat. First, the cardboard lunch boxes cannot contain food with a high liquid content without leaking. Although sauce in meat dishes can be drained off, after two or three hours the meat becomes dry and tough. The advantage of deep frying is that meat retains its moisture and so remains tender much longer. Steaming also takes longer than deep frying, which is why frying is the method of choice for food vendors who have limited time to prepare, pack, and deliver school lunches in large quantities. Market competition also encourages them to sell the crispy fried foods schoolchildren prefer.

Although boxed lunches sold to school kids are not wholesome to begin with, there are ways to make up for some of their shortcomings. Chen points out that meat dishes can be fried briefly, then stewed in gravy. This reduces the amount of oil needed and makes the meat tastier, but takes somewhat longer. Another method is to roast the meat in an electric oven to let some fat drip off. This reduces calories but means the vendor has to invest more in kitchen equipment.

Spot health inspections and changes in cooking methods may help improve caterers' standards, but many of their less visible problems may ultimately only be resolved through on-the-spot monitoring and control by professional nutritionists. That is the caterers' weakest spot.

Yang Jui-ping, chair of the Taipei County Nutritionists Association, says that these days the bigger caterers do employ licensed nutritionists, but they pay them poorly, offer them inadequate work conditions, and even require them to help pack lunch boxes when they are short-staffed. When the nutritionists suggest healthy ingredients, these are usually rejected as too costly. This makes nutritionists feel they have only been hired to lend credibility to their employer. Their room for maneuver is very limited, and they usually end up quitting after a short period of time. As a result, school-lunch businesses tend to be internship venues for freshly licensed nutritionists.

Yang Jui-ping does not mince words. According to her, the blame for this vicious circle lies not just with the vendors. Nutritionists need to get more practical training and new graduates should be helped to gain hands-on experience as early as possible. If nutritionists have no notion of cost or of what it takes to run a business, and don't even know what a block of tofu weighs or costs, they will not gain any credibility with company bosses, will never be able dispel the stereotype that they are "nitpickers and troublemakers" or to play a genuine role in the industry.

Expensive and unpalatable?

In remote areas, the school lunch question takes on a different complexion. Miaoli County Education Bureau engaged its first nutritionist in 2005. Kung Yun-chu explains that 106 schools in the county either have their own cafeterias or share a big kitchen provided by one school in the district; 35 order boxed lunches from outside vendors. Kung is the county's only school nutritionist, responsible for the safety of food and drink consumed by 62,000 elementary and middle-school students. As if this challenge were not enough, a recently launched environmental education program has made her job even harder.

In response to parents' complaints about a lack of variation in the content of boxed lunches from outside vendors, early in 2006 Miaoli County Education Bureau invited bids for a contract to deliver lunch to 35 schools in the county. Six caterers were selected to deliver lunch buffets served out of economical tubs for a more reasonable price of NT$35 per meal.

The lower price of tub buffets increased take-up of school lunches from 70% to 90% of students, but some parents complained that their children were being made to carry heavy food tubs to their classrooms, or were not eating their fill, or that the actual lunch menus had not improved. Six schools were excluded from the program because they were too far away. In October 2006, the Miaoli County Government decided to change tack and allocated funds to build two central kitchens and expand existing kitchens in ten or so schools to supply nearby schools. But it allows schools to decide for themselves whether to operate their kitchens themselves or contract their operation out under a GOCO arrangement.

Government-owned, contractor-operated

There are currently more than 400 GOCO elementary and middle-school kitchens serving nutritious meals. Although that is only 11% of Taiwan's 3400 schools, their influence should not be underestimated. Two focal points in the school lunch debate are that certain locations are hotly contested among caterers, and that in some cases a single central kitchen serves meals to as many as 5-6000 children.

"Unless a business stands to make an annual profit of hundreds of thousands or several million, why would it bother to bid for a government contract?" Yen Mei-chuan, president of the Homemakers' Union and Foundation, says it is understandable under these circumstances if firms try to increase their profits by cutting spending on ingredients and staff. The problem is that while from the government's standpoint outsourcing school kitchen operations is certainly convenient, if students' interests were put first, would it not make sense to spend a few hundred thousand NT dollars on improving lunch menus?

Moreover, although GOCO kitchens are statutorily required to hire a nutritionist, the nutritionist's boss is the contractor, which makes proper monitoring rather difficult. If the School Health Act is put into practice, over 300 nutritionists will be working in schools islandwide in the next few years. That ought to reverse a deplorable trend. But if GOCO kitchens become the norm, government-hired nutritionists will occupy a very challenging position between caterers and schools.

In Taipei, where most school kitchens are government-owned/contractor-operated, one newly appointed government nutritionist found that for several years the school's lunch contractor had been flavoring its meals with a chemical seasoning known as dagujing ("big bone extract"). The nutritionist asked the contractor to stop using the seasoning because of its harmful health effects, but the school failed to back her up. In another case, the nutritionist found substandard ingredients and asked for the food to be recalled, but kept meeting with indirect refusals from company executives who felt secure in the knowledge that they had the backing of school and government officials. What is a lowly nutritionist to do?

Parents see school-owned and operated kitchens as the ideal, but local conditions and resources vary and there are some obstacles.

Many big central kitchens originally designed to supply nearby schools experience problems delivering large quantities of meals, managing their personnel, and maintaining their equipment and boilers. Schools often worry that "a boiler is like a time bomb waiting to go off in the school." The traffic and transportation problems involved in delivering meals to several schools are also more than overstretched school staff can cope with.

Better late than never

Looking to the future, if GOCO school kitchens become indispensable, how can proper oversight be established to assure children's health?

The system for awarding lunch contracts that is currently in place provides some measure of quality assurance. For example, before a public school can award a contract to a caterer, the meat, vegetables, and flavoring used in its meals have to meet Taiwan's Certified Agricultural Standards (CAS), Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), and Chinese National Standards (CNS) criteria. The health authorities must also receive regular health inspection reports of the school kitchens supplied by the company. But Chiang Hsiao-min, a senior nutritionist, thinks this is not enough and that the government should take a more proactive approach, such as banning unhealthy flavorings in meals. To force food companies to use more fresh ingredients, says Chiang, limits should be placed on the number of frozen prepared food items (such as pork surimi balls, chicken nuggets, and hotdogs) and the proportion of deep-fried food. If everything is spelled out in black and white in the invitation to tender, future disputes will be avoided and fewer caterers will try to get away with murder once they have secured a contract.

Most people think boxed lunch vendors can be neither forced nor persuaded to sell healthy food. If school lunches are to be prepared in school-owned kitchens, should they be operated by the schools themselves or by contractors? "It all depends on how local education bureaus see the issue," says Yang Jui-ping. If local governments think they owe it to parents to see to it that schoolchildren eat healthy and reasonably priced school meals, they may increasingly opt for school-owned, school-operated kitchens. But if they think educators should not exceed their competencies and there ought to be a "clear separation between lunch tables and classroom desks," they will lean toward GOCO kitchens.

As things stand, the schools that earn the highest grades from the public for their lunch programs are ones that run their own kitchens. Is there a future for GOCO school kitchens on the horizon? This issue will test not only the skills of nutritionists, but also the ability of policy makers to create appropriate systems.