So it looks like I’ll be finally arriving in Japan at the end of the summer for an ALT position and I’m extremely excited. Something that’s been weighing on me, however, is that since I first accepted the position before the pandemic, my Crohn’s disease has become rather severe and my diet is extremely restrictive – I can’t eat most fruits or vegetables not in juice form, for example. I’ve been stressed about how this will work in Japan, since I was told at one of my company interviews that you essentially have to eat whatever everyone eats together for school lunch.
Is this true? If so, are medical exemptions for this possible? I have no interest in being ‘the nail that sticks up’ as the expression goes, but if I eat *tsukemono*, pork, seasame seeds, etc, I could easily end up in the hospital and would really rather bring my own lunches. Does anyone have experience with this or know any more about how school lunch goes?
18 comments
You can opt out of school lunches, though you will have to make/bring your own lunch every day.
You can opt out of school lunch. I would just tell them you have bad allergies to avoid any awkward conversations.
Dietary reasons to not have the school lunch are almost always accepted. But, also realize that it may also ruffle some feathers depending on your company if it is a shitty one.
Congrats on getting through the pandemic backlog
afaik, you can opt out of the school lunch, meaning you’d have to make/bring your own or go hungry.
Do you know anything about your position yet?
It might be different for different schools/ who you’re hired by. For example, my high schools don’t have a school lunch, they bring their own. I also don’t know how it works for non-BoE ALTs, so it could be different for base-school ALTs
opt out is totally fine. you’ll probably have to only eat in the office since they don’t want the students seeing packed lunch (at least in my experience)
I’ve known several people who opted out of school lunch. Allergies, dietary restrictions or just not liking the food. You have to bring our own lunch everyday. You won’t be able to leave the school grounds during the day to go buy something.
YMMV, but the folks I know were limited to home made lunches and drinks like water or tea. No leftover pizza, McDonald’s, soda etc. There may or may not be a fridge to store your lunch so buy a insulated thermos to keep it a safe temp.
Unfortunately you will just have to decline the offer of school lunch and bring your own. I wouldn’t go into excessive details about my personal health issues. Just say that you have an ‘allergy’ and can’t eat it. Japan doesn’t really do much for people outside of the norm in terms of allergies or specific requirements such as vegetarians or vegans.
I’m vegetarian, and I just bring my own lunch and eat in the staffroom – no big fuss about it at all.
When I was asked about school lunch I just said no and there were no further questions. I get depressed just looking at that food.
You’re allowed to opt out and bring your own food. The only caveat is that you can’t eat with the students. You’ll be restricted to the teacher rooms or an isolated room. The thought is that if the students see you eating something different they might complain or behave badly.
As a vegetarian I just brought my lunch, too complicated making a list of stuff you can’t eat.
I even ate my bento with the students in the classroom, but it’s always best to talk to the staff about the best course of action first to avoid offending anyone.
Are you sure you want to fly halfway across the world to teach English with “severe Crohns”? Doesn’t sounds like you’ll have a fun time
I quit the lunch 5 months in after I got fat and they let me do it with no questions. You can drop it at any time as long as you tell them a month in advance. The menu for the month and the payment is monthly.
I’d go easy on “the nail that sticks up” stuff. I keep seeing it online and its not that strict at all. You’re a normal adult with boundaries you don’t have to say yes to anything you don’t want to.
I have a very sensitive stomach so I also opted out of school lunch. They don’t care if I eat with the students or not. But I teach JHS, not sure if the rules are different for those who teach elementary.
I’ll echo what a lot of people are saying. I have a shellfish allergy and while it doesn’t pop up a lot in school lunches it is there from time to time. I told my company and they informed my schools. So when something with shellfish worse up I just bring in a replacement for that dish not the whole lunch. There are plenty of students that have died allergies so there l they tend to understand that.
Not true. I don’t like rice, Japanese schools serve rice 4 days per week.
I only eat the school lunch on Fridays( bread day) the rest of the week, I bring my own.
As everyone has said, you can opt out. Just tell them you have food allergies, and they’ll understand. Kids with food allergies get a special lunch, but the schools will honestly be happier if you just bring your own to avoid the headache. They may request you not eat with the kids though, it really depends on the school.
Schools are supposed to give you a special lunch if you have allergies to something. For example, if you’re allergic to chicken on chicken day, you get no chicken. You may not get anything in place of the chicken though.
I told my old school of two years that I couldn’t eat beans and they never, ever took out the beans. They would do this bizarre, irritating giggle (like they thought it was cute) and told me to make sure to take the beans out before I eat it.
I took out those damn beans until I quit towards the end of the second year. During my last month I cold-turkey’d lunches. I said I wasn’t going anymore and cited that the school lunches were making me sick. The school got angry at me for it and called me lazy.
Anyway, the message of my story is that you should just opt out of the school lunches because they might not care enough to not kill you since you’re not a student.