Abstract
Dietary habits are an important factor for children at the growing stage for the maintenance of health. In recent years, in addition to the use of bread and noodles as staple food, restaurant food has come to account for a large proportion of the daily diet.
For the present paper, school lunches for which the menus are planned to fulfil the nutritious requirements of energy, protein, calcium, iron, vitamins A, B1, B2, and C, etc., were investigated for differences in the content of inorganic matter due to the type of staple food, and a comparation with restaurant food was also made.
In school lunches planned to fulfil the dally requirements, even phosphorus which is unrelated to the requirements showed little variance and was in good balance with calcium with the P/Ca of about 1.9. Microelements such as manganese, zinc, and copper also showed little variance in school lunches as compared with restaurant food.
Selection of bread, rice, or noodles for the staple food did not result in much difference in the contents of the inorganic matter. Magneseum in meals was greater in content with noodles as the staple food than with rice or bread. Mg/Ca was also high. Among inorganic matter, phosphorus, zinc, and copper were less in content with school lunches than for restaurant food, and more meat was thought to be used in restaurant food.
The foregoing findings showed hardly any difference in the contents of inorganic matter in school lunches due to the type of the staple food. As compared with restaurant food, school lunches show little variance, well balanced nutrition, and less use of meat.
