Exploring the emotional and political implications of removing animal products from school lunches

School lunch, though a steadfast component of many educational institutions, is not typically the focus of research. Specifically, the consumption of animal products in school lunches is a topic that has not been thoroughly explored. Students learn about nutrition in classrooms, but this discourse has often been found to highlight the nutritional inadequacies of a plant-based diet. Studies have also shown that students consider meat nutritionally essential and believe that plant-based eating can lead to deficiencies. In this study, the researcher explored students' emotional and political responses to the unanticipated removal of animal products by school administration from their school lunches.

This study was conducted at a private upper secondary school in an urban area in Sweden. The school's chef introduced the idea to change the school lunch offerings to a vegan menu as an opportunity to show the environmental consequences of consuming animal products. The researcher conducted 13 focus groups of three to seven students and one interview with one student to learn more about students' responses to and feelings regarding the removal of animal products from school lunches. A total of 67 students aged 16-18 years participated in the focus groups, which were held over a three-week period while the vegan month was occurring. Participants were gathered from classes the researcher visited. In each focus group students were asked a series of questions designed to encourage them to discuss their own experiences and offer personal reflections. Student responses were analyzed for common themes.

Four key themes regarding the exclusion of animal products were identified from the focus groups: political left/right conflict, gendered political conflict, embodied political conflict, and conflict about the school's expected political neutrality. Students connected eating a vegan or vegetarian diet with the political left and stated that the school's decision to remove animal products from school lunches was indicative of leftist leanings. Some participants identified this political association as a potential reason for the conflicting emotional responses from many students, noting that there is a high number of conservative-leaning students who attend the school. Participants also connected veganism with femininity and associated an animal product-based diet with a more masculine persona. Previous studies have shown that young women are more likely to dislike meat and decrease their meat consumption, while young men are less likely to decrease meat consumption and more likely to associate meat consumption with masculinity. Being connected to this feminist trait might have been a risky position for male students concerned with fitting in.

Participants also discussed how their classmates embodied political conflict through protests in response to the vegan initiative. Students wrote debate articles, surveyed other students regarding their positions, put up posters in protest, and even left the classroom when teachers talked about the initiative. Some students in the focus group had strong emotional reactions to the removal of animal products from school lunches. Participants were also asked if they thought schools should take a stance regarding the type of food served in cafeterias. Many were critical of the switch to a vegan menu, citing one's individual rights to eat as they choose rather than being forced to follow a certain diet. Students discerned between the school making environmentally friendly choices and making an ideological shift, and relayed that they did not feel that the school should be taking a political stance. The focus groups identified the neutral or apolitical stance as a diet that includes animal products. Ultimately, the removal of animal products caused the school lunch program to become politicized by students, in this case showing that eating in an environmentally friendly way in school could not be separated from the politics of animal consumption.

This study had limitations. Because the study took place at a private secondary school in a high-income urban setting, the students may not be representative of students in public or charter schools, or in schools in other areas of the country or world. The researcher also noted that most of the participants were females, which was somewhat representative of the school but may not represent other areas.

The researcher emphasized the need for educators to address animal product consumption as a socio-political issue rather than just a nutritional or moral choice. They recommend creating educational content to help students understand the cultural and economic factors of agriculture, as well as evaluating the roles of agricultural companies in educational institutions to help address questions about animal consumption in schools.