The way food works in Singapore schools is that they are run like little markets, but the food is subsidized. So a bowl of noodles that might be $3 outside of school, in the real world, might be $0.50 or $1. I think there were food subsidy like meal coupons and subsidized meals (delivered through crediting the students’ transit card, like a clipper card) for lower income kids.

The main reason why this wasn’t ‘free’ and ‘the same’ for all is that everyone has different dietary requirements. Some kids needed halal food, others didn’t eat beef for religious reasons. Also, we were used to having great variety and choice of food outside in the real world it would have broken me to have someone tell me what to eat. Even at 7 years old