School Meals in English Schools are C**p! Do something about them.

[oggbashan]

Please, if you have an address in ENGLAND, visit this site and sign the petition. You have to give a valid email address but you can choose to be anonymous.

www.feedmebetter.com

The ingredients for school meals in England cost an average of 37 pence and the 'meat' ingredients are often made from mechanically recovered meat = bones and skin whizzed in a blender. The parents pay about one pound and forty pence for each meal.

Jamie Oliver has been campaigning for better nutrition standards for English schoolchildren. Apart from trying to introduce a more balanced diet he wants the cost of the ingredients to be increased to a more realistic level.

The government has offered initiatives to reduce the salt level in the meals but NO extra money. Unless there is more money the quality of school meals will still be poor. England's schoolchildren have less spent on school meals than almost every country in Europe.

If you remember your school meals with distaste, sign the petition to save our children from more of the same.

Og

 

[scheherazade_79]

I agree, Og. The trouble is, every time kids are giving the option of eating c**p or something healthier, they go for the c**p EVERY time. And more worrying still, in some cases what's on offer at school is much better than what's on offer at home.

I think all of British society needs a food makeover. Big companies like Tescos and Sainsburys need to be curbed from monopolising the market and bumping up food prices. They also need to reintroduce proper COOKERY LESSONS to schools - not designing wrappers for chocolate bars, or learning about the nutritional content of a microwave dinner, but learning how to cook PROPER food.

Kids are less inclined to try new things if their own home diet is monotonous.

I'm with you, though Og. I don't know how it is at the moment, but I remember going to a presentation by a local butcher, who claimed that the worst pieces of meat were always snapped up by schools and hospitals. What kind of society are we living in when we feed children and the sick the poorest food that we have?

 

[cantdog]

What kind? Capitalist.

 

[Guest]

My kids have a packed lunch for school - tuna/cheese sandwiches and so on, and I always give them at least one piece of fresh fruit with it, and a yoghurt. Yes, they have treats (crisps/wafer), but the main bulk of what I provide them with is nutritionally good. Then I cook them a well balanced meal in the evenings. That way I know they are getting a good diet.

I don't trust school dinners, I disliked them as a child myself. Off to sign the petition...

Lou

 

[NoJo]

Does anyone else find it sexy that og's too well brought up to spell out "crap" fully, and use asterisks instead?

 

[Guest]

Does anyone else find it sexy that og's too well brought up to spell out "crap" fully, and use asterisks instead?

Yes. It's almost as sexy as you using the word "control".

 

[NoJo]

Yes. It's almost as sexy as you using the word "control".

You mean c*****l.

 

[Guest]

You mean c*****l.

Ahhhhhh, that's the one. Thank you.

4 and counting.

 

[matriarch]

What Scheh says is true. A lot of the problem with what kids will eat, starts at home.

For 5 years I worked as a classroom auxiliary in a middle school (ages 9-13), with the cookery teacher.

She brought in a programme of classes for the 9 and 10 year olds. The were taught simple things, such as opening a tin of beans or spaghetti, making toast, a cup of tea, boiling or poaching an egg. Simple things that the kids could do for themselves when they got home.

When they had prepared this simple meal, they all had to spread a cloth over the table, and lay out places for each other. The staggering thing was how many of them didn't even know how to fill and boil a kettle, how to make the simplest cup of tea with a tea bag, and how to lay out a simple knife, fork, spoon set up.

The most revealing part of all was persuading them to sit at tables together, to eat their simple meals, and make intelligent conversation. The room was totally silent apart from the sound of eating. They had no idea how to talk to each other over a meal. Oh they knew how to shout and throw food around, that was obvious from a lot of the lunch times, but not how to simply take pleasure from a meal with friends.

For me, brought up in a household where meals were times for families to be together, talk over the day, socialise with each other, and something I made every effort to do with my own sons, this last piece was more damning than the rest.

Despite the shock of the children's staggering lack of ability to prepare even the simplest meal for themselves, these lessons were very popular with all the children. I like to think they took something away from those times to improve their lives.

Then in the last two years, they actually prepared proper dishes, learned about nutrition, food preparation. It was fun, we had a lot of laughs, and for some of these kids, the food they cooked in the lesson was probably the best meal they had at home for days. A sad enditement.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I'll fake a Brittish e-mail address if you guys and gals promise to come over here and do the same thing for the poor schmucks in Swedish schools.

 

[Liar]

I'll fake a Brittish e-mail address if you guys and gals promise to come over here and do the same thing for the poor schmucks in Swedish schools.

In fact, ours isn't as bad as the situation in the UK. Not saying that it's gourmet, but the food in most Swedish schools is ok nutrition-wise. The problem is that it still tastes like old boots in most schools, so noone will eat it anyway.

#L

 

[oggbashan]

It's working... sort of...

Now that 200,000 people have signed the website the government is promising more money.

It is easy to promise when there is an election due soon. It wasn't in the budget last week so it isn't in writing.

Please get friends to sign up on:

www.feedmebetter.com

Og

 

[R. Richard]

Og:
I wish you well. I wish the kids well.

However, there is a saying in the US Armed Forces: "It is the best food in the world until the cooks get hold of it." And the results are served to armed men!

 

[oggbashan]

Og:
However, there is a saying in the US Armed Forces: "It is the best food in the world until the cooks get hold of it." And the results are served to armed men!

Even US Army cooks can't do much with thirty-seven pence worth of materials.

Many schools have removed the cooking equipment except for an industrial microwave to reheat pre-prepared meals. Jamie Olivier took some school dinner ladies to an Army Camp to be trained on how to produce healthy meals for large numbers.

Modern British Army cooks are well trained and can produce wonderful meals if they have the opportunity. I have eaten many mess dinners with delight. However what they can do under fire in a combat zone is limited. Some of our schools are a reasonable facsimile of a combat zone.

Giving the pupils better meals seems to produce better behaved and more attentive children - a win/win situation except that the costs are slightly higher.

Og

 

[R. Richard]

Og:
I would like to make a serious suggrestion here.

In the US schools are run by something called the Board of Education. I cannot imagine that English schools do not have a similar organization.

Typically, the BoE has a dining hall/lunch room type of operation. Research and find out how much the BoE spends on materials for meals on a per meal basis. Simliarly, if there is a "teacher's cafeteria," find out the per meal cost of materials.

The difference in costs between what the children's meals cost and what the adult's meals cost is typically enormous and provides a nice bargaining tool.

Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Me no speak English

the Board of Education.
Good luck!

Perhaps it [sic] something to do with the moors, and not being in a city. (ch18)

Bad luck!

 

[oggbashan]

Og:
I would like to make a serious suggrestion here.

In the US schools are run by something called the Board of Education. I cannot imagine that English schools do not have a similar organization.

Typically, the BoE has a dining hall/lunch room type of operation. Research and find out how much the BoE spends on materials for meals on a per meal basis. Simliarly, if there is a "teacher's cafeteria," find out the per meal cost of materials.

The difference in costs between what the children's meals cost and what the adult's meals cost is typically enormous and provides a nice bargaining tool.

Good luck!

Teachers and children get exactly the same. Amount spent per meal on materials and staff is set by the local city hall within guidelines and funding set by central government. Typical funding for materials per meal is 37 pence (about 50 cents) and the supply is by competitive tender. Many firms are now refusing to quote because they cannot provide anything reasonable for the amount allowed. The time allowed to the staff to prepare the meals does not allow much more than reheating and serving.

An increase to 50 pence per meal would make better food available even if it is still 'junk' food like chicken nuggets (since when did chickens have nuggets?) and pizza.

Og

PS. Chicken nuggets are made by mechanically beating up chicken carcasses and skin once the 'good' bits have been removed and moulding the resulting mess into shape with a filler and covering with breadcrumbs. You shouldn't feed them to a dog.