To think that Jamie Oliver is right...

[Easywriter]

Shoot me down should you care to but I don't want my children to eat rubbish.

I'm not obsessed by my childrens diet but I want them to eat fresh, wholesome, nutritious food in the correct quantities.

The Government should stand behind Jamie Oliver in his quest to ensure that school meals are of a decent standard.

For some children it may be the only decent meal they eat in a day, for others it will be continuing what is standard in their homes.

If mothers want to feed their children hamburgers through school railings then they deserve to be preached to about healthy eating to within an inch of their lives. Being stupid yourself is no reason to justify letting your stupidity affect your child (I mean the hamburger mothers).

It's not cool to simply disagree with everything the previous Government (as a means to signify a new regime or as a cost cutting exercise) did and surely to give school children good meals is a no-brainer.

Just do it simpleton co-elition!
Surely I'm right!

Yay and nay

We don;t get JO meals ehre (not in England) and whilst they could be worse we still get hotdog and chips on a Monday and fishcake and chips on a Friday so very not good.

OTOH I have a child with eating disoders and every time they do the ehavy eating awareness stuff at school his weight plummets agin.

So JO is right about ehalthy food but tehy could back off on what they teach and look at how a literal child might take it first IYSWIM. Vrisps and cakes are not bad if well chosen and a component of a deliberate weight gain diet, for example.

Kids like good food, cooking etc when its presented as imteresting and fuun; with exceptions through SN etc most kids when raised with nutritious foodds will eat nutritious foods.

Fio I think DC's kids do, but I bet it's not state school in the crappola sense somehow

I;d like to see him send his kids to my old school, where the alumni group is called a surtvivor's association and i;d seen kids stab eteahcers before I was 8- as if that would happen when you can afford otherwise!

ommmm - I have 2 boys "with the sorts of eating difficulties that go with sensory disorders of various kinds"

DS1 would starve if all that is offered his processed crap. He rejects brown food. He hates potatoes, baked beans and anything with that sort of texture. He usually eschews the cake or other sweet pud on offer in favour of fruit.

DS2 is all about the beige food, but I'd rather he had the decent quality beige food I offer him than the crap that used to be served in many schools. Just because he has a limited palate doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the levels of salt, sugar, sat fat and additives in his food. It also doesn't mean all other kids have to be offered nothing but stodge of little nutritional value.

He will go on packed lunches when he starts reception so he doesn't have to use the dining hall if he can't cope with it. I won't be putting crisps in his lunch bag. As soon as I know for sure he's OK with the dining room, I'll probably put him on school dinners.

I think anniebee65 post about lunchbox policy is a good one.

Our school apparently has a healthy eating mark but I am dubious about somewhere that let my daughter have tinned spaghetti, fish portion, mash and veggies. veggies or tinned pasta/baked beans not both please!

Today she had hot dog, sweetcorn, chips and red sauce with treacle cake and custard.

Yesterday pizza was on the menu.

They wonder why I prefer her to sandwiches. I got told off for allowing 1 choc biscuit for a treat on a Friday in her lunch box which is usually quite healthy!

"Children eat what grown ups eat from day 1"

Indeed. I fed ds pureed rogan josh from birth

It is stupid, this children's (or worse "kids'" - the only time I really object to the word is on a menu) food thing - I agree, it surely contributes to obesity rates.

DS does have something else if I'm making a particularly hot Thai curry for DP and I, but other than that he has always eaten with us.

it's important socially, not just nutritionally. I always ate with my parents, proper home cooked stuff.

some otherwise lovely eateries I've been to lately are actually serving Annabel Karmel food in the guise of 'proper' kids food - spag bol etc. Ready Meals basically

I think that he is to be applauded for bothering.
It is a shame that it doesn't go back to the system when I was at school. We were not allowed to bring a packed lunch. The choice was simple, a school meal or go home. Those who couldn't afford school meals got a free one.

Sadly I think the 'children's food' thing is becoming more common on the continent now. Saw 'children's menus' in lots of restaurants and they weren't small portions of adult meals,often they were steak and frites or chicken and frites.

I remember going to France when you couldn't get individual packets of crisps,kids yogs,kids snack foods etc etc. Last year sadly most of the supermarkets I went to were rammed with kids junk. Each year I see more. I wouldn't be surprised if France does get an obesity problem akin to ours in the same way alcohol is becoming more of a problem.

The Jamie Oliver thing is purely to deflect attention from an appalling govt decision not to ban trans fats.

The minister believes - quite rightly - that the public will be side-tracked into arguing about the merits of JO rather than voice their anger about his lame decision not to ban trans fats.

They're not banning trans fats .

Errrr reassure me that schools are banned from using trans fats in their meals as I'm a tad trans fat phobic(that's what having a medical scientist uncle does to you).

Mil does that 'children's food thing' She will make herself and DH a curry, when I am working and then serve dd2 chicken nuggets. I am wondering what the magic age is where dd2 will be allowed to eat 'grown up' food?

Pointy, do you mean the EU decision? Not sure whether our own government has the ability to act unilaterally. If they can, they should. But are probably in the pockets of the food manufacturers.

Thing about school dinners is it was a Tory government that forced schools to contract out catering, cut the budget, and allowed schools to operate with no nutritional standards. So I fear what will happen under this new Tory government that is going to cut spending by 25%.

Thankfully some great campaigners were already lobbying for change when Jamie came along - and his work really added some oomph as ministers care about headlines.

By going back into the way this thing developed, I don't mean just reflex 'blame Maggie', I mean cutting costs and privatising is classic Tory policy. So I'm not persuaded this new government will do any different, especially as they busy yelling about the country being bankrupt.

well, according to the mail which I perused today

Jumping in with my hard hat on here as I feel I'm going against the grain but....

Ds1 hasn't had a school dinner since this all began, he used to have them every day. He eats well at home - homecooked dinner most nights, good balance of fruit and veg blah blah but is very fussy. I can get him to eat well as I pander to him know what he likes and work on that.

At school i would much rather he had a dinner which he ate, enjoyed and could get on with the afternoon than didn't eat a healthy dinner and was hungry all afternoon. Not all children will 'eat if they are hungry'

While I agree his heart is in the right place now I don't need him telling me I'm a crap Mum thanks. I believe he did apologise for some of the comments he made at the beginning and that he has toned down the 'I am God' attitude but I still don't feel it will achieve much more than publicity for him and putting more guilt and worry on to those of us who do our best anyway.

Those who you really need to reach often wont benefit and will be the ones at the chippy or buying sweets on the way to school and not using their free dinner allocation or being sent with a whole packet of biscuits from home as lunch as they don't like the 'new shit' and not eating their free school dinner . I have seen all these and could go on! At least these children were eating something before.

Could I also say that I agree with education on healthy eating at school and like the food charts etc that are often sent home from primary school so i'm not totally anti-health education. Just anti Mr Oliver's involvement!

Also my dbrother, who, as it happens, is a health improvement practitioner in schools also works for Jamie's uncle (in a pub restaurant ) and has met him several times so we're like family really. So there
I have no idea what my brother thinks about this subject but believe he thinks Jamie is fab and would probably hate me if he read this

So after getting that off my chest, i believe YABU

My dd has awful school meals, I make her have the school meals in the hope that if more people have then they will get better. They don't have unhealthy options but they are dull and badly made.

The school I teach in has fabulous school meals, I look forward to my meal times. During the week often my best meals are at work. I have taught in other schools that have awful meals, spongy meat, tuna mayonaise sandwiches with no tuna. I don't understand why some schools can do it and others can't.

It all depends on the 'cook', completely and utterly.

I do think cost is a factor, I know my dd friend is in a family of about 4/5 children and they take it in turns to have school meals because it is too expensive.

I don't get this myself, I think I spend more on a packed lunch.

I think Jamie Oliver was on the right tracks and was making people listen. But peole want a qucik fix and this can't be solved quickly. It took a few years to get to the state school dinners got to and it will take that long to get out.

And it needs someone like JO to keep at it until changes are made and our children are getting the healthy meals they deserve at school.

I think it is very shortsighted to stop such plans.

It does pointy, we have a fantastic cook, she does it all in house and if we say we like something it becomes a regular.

I think at my dd's school the meals arrive made and they heat them up, we must complain to the company or the school weekly. Presently dd is keeping a food diary and photographing her food. A copy of this is going not only to the school, the catering company but to the LEA and my MP.