The Swiss Kids and Their Food

So I've been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and I posted about the Swiss children and their knives. There is a bit of an update to that post. See, I went into the forest with the big girl a couple Fridays ago and saw a minor accident with one of the children and his knife. Most of the kids wear their knives around their necks on shoelaces or attached by chains to their belt loops. One boy walked out of the clearing where the teachers were and used his knife. I saw him walk into camp crying. I was about 30 feet away and I could see blood covering his thumb and part of his hand. A teacher rushed to him and bandaged him up and when I saw him later he was happy with a nice big bandage on his finger. *eek*

About the Swiss kids' food. When S started kindy, I was told that she needed to bring snack to school every day. I was instructed, quite forcefully in fact, that I should not pack anything with sugar in it. The snack I packed the first day was inspected and I got a Swiss nod of approval because it was raw rot peperoni strips (red bell pepper). I've had a chance to look around the class and see what the kids pack for snack. Frequently it is carrots, bell pepper, apple, clementines, even raw zucchini with a slice of bread and meat or cheese. The bread is always the artisan bread they make here or a small pretzel. I've seen some crackers and cream cheese but usually it is just my daughter that brings that sort of thing. On Fridays, the kids bring sausages to cook over the campfire and eat on their whittled sticks. Nothing is prepackaged.

Lunch is a little harder to scope out because Swiss kids all go home for their midday meal. It is a bit of a hold over from when moms stayed at home but the moms here adjusted for working part time or full time by switching off child care. My Swiss informants tell me that the big meal is lunch and they cook a large meal for their kids. The kids get out at noon and for the older kids with afternoon class, need to be back at 1:30 or so. That gives an hour and a half to eat, digest, and come back to school. Right now S only goes in the morning so we will have to see how the lunch thing works for her.