A photo of a school lunch tray on the left with black text on a blue background on the right that says "¡Comemos! School lunch in Colombia

Typical School Lunch in Colombia

Comparing school lunches around the world is one of my favorite ways to dive into the intricacies of another culture. We can learn a lot about the geography of a place, the degree to which they are community-focused, and their values around food by examining how school lunch is served. Take, for example, the multi-course meals with real silverware that young students are served in France, or the way that Japanese students are expected to serve their classmates and clean their school afterward.

I was a teacher at a private school in Medellín, Colombia for a year and found that there were many differences between the school lunch food served there and the school lunch food and practices at schools in the United States. I tried to document most of the snacks and lunches that we were served, so you can compare it with your own culture(s).

Note that this is a snapshot of one school in one city in Colombia and doesn’t mean that all schools in Colombia are the same. Also, this is a private bilingual school, so the facilities and food are nicer than a typical public school in Colombia.

The school schedule

The school day started around 7:00 a.m. and ended around 3:00 p.m. Younger students ate earlier and left school earlier but everyone had a morning snack and then lunch. High school students had a 30-minute snack break around 10:30 a.m. and then a 50-minute lunch at 1:45 p.m.

In Colombia, the morning snack is called refrigerio and often consists of an arepa, a thick corn tortilla, or a palito de queso, a breaded and fried cheese stick.

Students could choose to bring their own snack and/or lunch or eat food from the cafeteria. About half of the students brought their lunch from home. They usually brought food like rice that needed to be warmed up, so there were many microwaves available for student use. I didn’t see many cold salads or sandwiches. The school generously provided international teachers snack and lunch, so I got to try lots of new foods.

There were a handful of students and teachers who were vegetarians. I am not a vegetarian but don’t like to eat a lot of meat. There was often a large piece of meat, but if you don’t see meat in the photo it’s because I chose not to eat it. The kind cafeteria staff was always very concerned that I was not getting enough to eat 🙂

Lunch foods in Colombia

El almuerzo is lunch and it’s generally a bigger meal than dinner. For drinks, there were always multiple kinds of tropical fruit juices available for lunch, and milk was often served with the snack.

Flip through the image gallery below to see the typical lunch foods at my school in Colombia:

  • white rice, soup, shredded lettuce, plantains, pork with orange sauce
  • white rice, beans, salad, sausage, plantain on a metal tray
  • white rice, yuca, salad, cookie, soup on a metal tray
  • A hamburger with lettuce, tomato, french fries and sauces on a metal tray
  • white rice, soup, yuca, potatoes with white sauce and a wrapped candy on a metal tray
  • Mixed rice, meat and vegetables, soup, salad, cookie and a fried arepa on a metal tray
  • Tortilla chips surrounded by lettuce and tomato, shreded cheese, ground beef and sauces on a metal tray
  • Beans, shredded carrots, white rice, sweet, fried plantain chips on a metal tray
  • Soup with chicken surrounded by white rice, half a banana, corn cobs and carrot salad on a metal tray
  • breaded meat, French fries, soup, white rice, chocolate cookie and shredded lettuce on a metal tray
  • beans, white rice, shredded salad and plantain with sauce on a metal tray
  • breaded chicken, two small arepas, soup, white rice, cookie and shredded salad on a metal tray
  • white rice, stewed plantains, candy, meat, creamy vegetarian dish, on a metal tray
  • white rice, a fried thing with tuna inside, a chocolate bar and something else fried on a metal tray
  • a wrap with chicken and white sauce, a bun, shredded lettuce salad on a metal tray
  • Soup, plantain, apple salad, chocolate bar, stewed meat on a metal tray
  • red juice, candy bar, shredded lettuce, minced chicken and small potatoes on a metal tray
  • pork, beans, white rice, plantain, chocolate bar and salad with avocado on a metal tray

Looking for a school in Colombia? Here’s a list of international schools in Medellín.

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