UK Chefs Fighting for Better School Meals
Jamie Oliver was the first to put the importance of better school time meals in the fore front of the public debate. Sadly, what it all comes down to is money. This driving force also aides in derailing the fight against childhood obesity. Not to say that parents have not done their share of contributing to the epidemic.
Sadly, we live in a society that is aghast at such problems, but unwilling to put the money where the problem is. The UK Times recently posted an article about how Britain is truly on the forefront of school lunch reform. Because of Jamie Oliver they even have regular training sessions for the “Lunch Ladies”. They learn how to better prepare fresh foods and methods on how to get those little guys to try it.
Alexandra Frean from Times Online:
Efforts to improve school dinners are doomed to fail unless more money is spent on ingredients, one of the country’s leading chefs says.
Raymond Blanc, of Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire, said yesterday that the average of 70p per day spent on ingredients for each school meal was shockingly low and should be increased to at least £1.30 – and even £1.50 – to ensure that school cooks could buy nutritious food. “We have reduced the concept of school food to one of filling up little bodies with fast energy, which often means that children do not get nutritious foods,” he told The Times.
“It is all very well to buy an apple, but if it is not a good apple and it is covered in chemicals and residue, that is no good.” Food for school dinners should be produced locally, freshly prepared, seasonal and, where possible, organic, he said.
The amount of money spent on ingredients has increased substantially since Jamie Oliver’s television campaign three years ago exposed the Turkey Twizzler culture in school kitchens and found that local authorities were spending as little as 40p a day on ingredients. Now the average amount spent is 60p a day in primary schools and 74p in secondary schools.
Last year the Government allocated £220 million over three years and a further £240 million until 2011 to improve catering facilities and subsidise meals, but the catering industry says it comes to just an extra 10p per child per day. The Local Authority Caterers’ Association reported last year that two thirds of English councils were making a loss on school meals because take-up had fallen since the introduction of healthier menus.
Mr Blanc said that the answer was for the Government to provide greater subsidies for school food. Without this, he said, problems of childhood obesity and poor diet would never go away.
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