The Oslo Lunch gives a full daily quota of “protective” food elements…it’s minerals and vitamins you and your family need for health and vitality. Put it in young Jimmy’s satchel, Dad’s bag, Joan’s suitcase…the OSLO LUNCH.
School’s back for another year for many Australian children this week, and the remainder will follow in the next week or so. There is nothing that creates a fear and loathing of schoolday mornings (at least in this household) than the thought of preparing school lunches. It's an ongoing challenge to prepare something tasty and healthy with some degree of variety.
And then there’s the age-old dilemma of keeping the food cool until it is consumed at lunchtime, especially on days like today when it is forecast to reach into the 40s (degrees Celsius). My daughters take insulated lunchboxes with a frozen icepack included with the food.
Before our time, in the 1940s, the concerns about school lunches were more to do with the nutritional value of what the children were eating. During the Second World War many children were considered to be malnourished. This, of course, had implications for their ability to learn.
A chain of Opportunity Clubs had been established in the industrial suburbs of Melbourne to encourage the well-being of children in those areas. In the early 1940s, these clubs adopted the concept of an “Oslo Meal” and offered schoolchildren an Oslo Lunch.[1]
The Oslo lunch consisted of a wholemeal bread sandwich filled with cheese and salad, a glass of milk and an apple or other seasonal fruit. This interest in children's diet was part of an international movement which had begun prior to the War. In Norway, the head of the school health system at that time, Professor Carl Schiotz, devised a meal to be served to Norwegian school children called "the Oslo breakfast" which included milk, bread and fruit. Its reputation as an aid to nourishing children and enhancing their ability to learn soon spread to other parts of the world.
According to the Kraft advertisement, the experiment of introducing the Oslo Lunch through the Opportunity Clubs in Melbourne was a success. It was claimed that, after three months children on the Oslo lunch gained an average of over 7 lbs. in weight,which was more than twice as much as children on ordinary lunches.
The Oslo Lunch was then introduced in various states of Australia over the next ten years or so.
It would seem that the Oslo Lunch principles have definitely stood the test of time. In packing my daughters' lunches each morning, I try to include a selection of foods containing some complex carbohydrate, a serve of calcium, some vegetables, some fruit and a serve of protein. I just didn't realise I was being Scandinavian when I did so!
It's not always a sandwich, milk and fruit in their lunchboxes. In fact, it is rarely a sandwich, milk and fruit. My daughters' lunches are more likely to include something like a wholemeal ham and cheese wrap, a small serve of yoghurt, a fruit salad, and some carrot or celery sticks. There's often also a small treat such as a mini-muffin.
Do you remember the Oslo lunch? Inspire me - what's your favourite 'Oslo combination' in a lunchbox?
[1] “The Oslo Meal” in British Journal of Nursing, June 1945Accessed via: http://rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/
14 comments:
Another great post.....
I will be interested to see what others do as my lunches for the kids are similar to yours...
At my primary school in the 1970s an Oslo lunch was something we bought at the school canteen. It was a takeaway plate with a slice of ham, a boiled egg portion and a selection of salad items.
Much more appetising than the other staple - the meat pie - which the boys would insist contained fly eyes and sheep gizzzards.
Oh, and if we're sharing school lunches - my kids took chicken sandwiches, apple and a piece of banana cake each. One child's lunch box came home with the apple untouched and the soggy sandwich crusts in the bottom.
I cannot remember what we put in the lunch boxes except vegemite and cheese sandwiches but I do remember rejoicing on the day I made the last school lunch!!
J.T.'s lunchbox is the same. Every. day. He is a man of routine. 5 "sandwiches" consisting of reduced fat peanuts butter and whole wheat crackers, low-sugar fruit juice, an apple or carrots (which he never eats, but his mother foolishly hopes will someday not return uneaten), and fruit snacks (like gummy bears). The Oslo lunch sounds delicious to me!
I had never heard of this Oslo lunch here in America. My memory is not very accurate when it comes to remembering what my children had for school lunch, nor what I had, as a child, 8 million years ago. Ha...not quite that long. Interesting post as always! I have no clue how women do it all these days. I was a stay at home Mom and so was my Mom. Life seems so busy these days.
It's funny, without reading the words I recognised it as an Oslo lunch.
this made me laugh ... first born had the wholemeal low gi gluten free bread with meat and cheese sandwich and an apple for lunch ... with milk - as much as things change they stay the same :) le
ps love your work ...
opps seperate morning tea of rice cake with egg and green and red grapes .... water always - le
Keeping food cool is a huge issue in North Qld. My kids carried eskies to primary school, but with the book load they take to high school this is am impossibility. My son eats a good breakfast, then just has vegemite sandwiches at school. He always has tuna and corn for "afternoon tea" as soon as he arrives home.
Funny that the Oslo lunch was developed to help children gain weight - now we'd implement it to support calorie reduction and weight loss.
I used to take a handful of Savoury Shapes wrapped up in greaseproof paper, an iced vovo, similarly wrapped and a banana to school every single day.
These days, the boys' favourite lunch is what they call "finger food". Its usually either a chicken drumstick or a hard boiled egg, some celery and carrot sticks, a piece of cheese and some rice crackers or vita weets.
A good way to keep lunches cool is to freeze yogurt tubes (Gogurts?) which they then eat with their lunch.
I'm a bit fanatical about lunches and like to have a peek in other kids' lunchboxes for ideas (under the guise of changing over readers). The things that some kids bring are amazing. There's one poor girl who every day in prep bought a can of coke, a packet of Twisties and a Milo Bar for lunch. Poor love.
Oh, I forgot. My kids are anti sandwich so we do savoury muffins, wraps and quiches a bit as well.
Packed lunches, as we call them now, didn't really exist as such in Britain in the 40's and 50's. Most people went home, men (as most women were still at home then) and primary schoolchildren, in the middle of the day and had their main cooked meal then. For the few children who didn't go home there would be a good reason and they were felt sorry for. Secondary school children who lived too far bought a cooked meal. This began to change towards the end of the fifties as the main meal began to move to the end of the day.
Oyster Bay Primary School in Sydney had an 'Oslo' canteen in the late 1960s: no lollies, no cakes, no soft drinks. As my mother never made me lunch I grew up on a diet of salad rolls and canned pineapple juice. I don't think it did me any harm.
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