Japan also lives to eat and their public school lunches are very healthy and nutritious. The children often also partake in the preparation of the meals in part, so they get that learning as well.
When I taught English to high school students in Japan, I had a couple of courses where we took over the kitchens and the students had to figure out how to cook meals with English recipes. I was very impressed with most of them. Certainly every student had basic cooking skills and could be trusted with every aspect of kitchen safety (and I was in a low level school).
One of the downsides to the Japanese school lunch approach is that it puts a burden on teachers. They are "on duty" during lunch time on a rotating basis. Japanese teachers get very little down time and extras like this are just expected of them.
Lunch is taken very seriously at the schools. In high school, lunch is not provided. A local bakery comes by to offer a variety of baked goods at a reasonable price, but you can't really trust that there will be decent food left by the time you get there (it is always a mad rush to be first in line at lunch time). Parents are expected to make a packed lunch. The teachers will often look at the students' lunches and if they are not good enough, the parents will be called in. In extreme cases I have seen teachers teaching parents how to cook nutritious packed lunches.
Again, it's a good policy which I think would be impossible to export. Imagine being called up by your kid's teacher and having to go in and be lectured because you failed to make a good enough lunch. I've actually seen parents in tears during their reprimand. Also imagine teachers staying late (unpaid) so that they can teach parents how to make lunch... In many ways, Japan is an amazing place...
I think this would be especially awkward with the prevalent safety culture of the US. ("How dare you put our kids in danger by giving them knives!")
We involve him in almost all cooking we do at home too.
U.S. school lunches are absolutely woeful. Just check out the #thanksmichelleobama pictures on twitter for a general overview[1]. I think there's got to be some big kick-backs given by the packaged food distributors, because there is no way that frozen pizza and McRib sandwiches are cheaper than cooking actual food.
In my large public university? Sodexo and poorly paid off site employees for 100% of staff.
Another failure of unmodelled externalities in capitalism, I think. If a kid's lunch costs $5 to involve them in the preparation process on site vs. $2.50 for a minimum cost contractor preparation... which is the better deal?