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!

Start 8.55, ends 3.15.

It's a VA school that has extra stuff to apkc into it's currioculum (before anyone yells choice at me, it's only a village school, but a VA Church one where Head insists on a very alrge amount of formal worship)

WHat is a VA church, SanctiMoanyArse?

And actually PD whilst I don;'t disagree about aprental role it isn't that easy if someone is working silly hours and perhaps a single aprent, or an army parent or whatever. It just isn't. There's no point basing policies on what should be optimum: we have to look at what is relaity, reality for a great many people is one aprent, or demanding jobs, or shifts that they ahve to muddle around best they can.

And I somehow think park facillities etc will be bottom of council lists with all the cuts. especially if like our as fast as they repair them the teenagers burn them down again.

There should be lots of time provided for exercise, exercise helps kids learn. both informal paly where friendship skills, selfd management, etc are learned, and more established PE classes where kids develop an awful lot in the ay of cooperation and team working skills.

The private school where I grew up made Wednesday an all sport day for just that reason (kids go in on saturday to catch up on academics) and so I imagine they are sharing my opinion on the value of what you can learn through organsied sports. Indeed, tehre's plenty of stuff out there about learning througha ctivity anyway (most written for boys but I presume would suit girls as well- only ahve boys so tend to have read on one area iyswim): orieteering for primary geogrpahy around a school site, treasure hunts (we did an RE absed one at the Church grounds- was incredible fun and as an adult most i;d run in ages LOL)....

When I started secondary school (1990) my mum let me have school dinners, and so I had a lovely unhealthy lunch of a hot dog, an iced bun and a milkshake every day, which tasted fantastic but rightly when she found out she took away my dinner money and gave me sandwiches instead!

That said, my mum was horrible at making sandwiches- quite often I had stuff like fish paste in them (complete vom) so I never ate them anyway.

With that in mind, I appreciate hugely what Jamie was trying to do, and the kids in the schools he trialed the nutricious food in actually did end up enjoying vegetable dishes and the like, and were getting good nosh inside them as a result.

How anybody could knock that idea as something that should be rolled out across the country is beyond me. If you make nutricious food appealing to kids then they will eat it, and not expect burgers and chicken dippers every day.

Sadly though, it seems that perhaps school dinners will remain as they are for the time being. When my (unborn) son finally goes to school, then he'll be having packed lunches made out of things he likes, but also those things must be good for him.

So true, totally agree, a small change can lead to other small changes in their diet, and at the end of the day it is far better than nothing.

I had school dinners in the 90's. they were YUM - proper food from a proper kitchen.

There was always a 'meal of the day' like con carne, spag bol, sheperds pie etc, and a home made type dessert like apple crumble.
Other kids sometimes did make comments like 'ooh/eww school dinners' but I could see that what I had was better than their crisps/fags. The school did later introduce things like chips and burgers but I never went for those!

BTW this was a school in a poor neighborhood, high SEN, and low academic results as you can imagine far below the national average.

But I actually did very well and got into a top uni. Was it the school dinners?... they certainly helped!

Have you seen the new Sainsbury's advert. Jamie Oliver eating beefburgers with a group of kids. What a hypocrite - so much for healthy eating !

What's wrong with a good beefburger? In what way is it unhealthy?

Which is kind of the point isn't it wb?

There are good beefburgers (generally made by hand with fresh minced meat and spices) and bad beefburgers (all the way down to MRM variety).

crazymum53 JO has taken a stand for freshly made, good quality food. So eating a beefburger doesn't make him a hypocrite so long as it's a goos quality one!

I would love good Jamie Oliver BEEFburgers in schools, freshly made from BEEF, perhaps with a nice bit of salad and tomato in there, but not lard/mrm burgers (Andrew Lansley burgers?) made of unrecognisable and dubious material, "turkey twizler" burgers.

I expect Andrew Lansley would like large school-food corporations to make greater profits (at our childrens expense). Theyve already been given a big tax break (at our expense).

No thanks, I dont want Andrew Lansley burgers. Tory burgers. Budget cut burgers. Poverty burgers. "We're all in this together" burgers.

I work in a primary school and the quality of the actual recipes have definitely improved.For example, the pizza recipe now has pureed veg in the tomato sauce. However, the combinations offered to the kids are just ridiculous.The cook is obviously very concerned about money and actively tries to discourage kids choosing veg. If they get it, the portion is tiny. She argues that they don't eat it anyway so its a waste to give it to them! But what really gets to me is that they will have, for example, pizza or gammon or baked potato as the main meal option. So the children choose one of these then if its gammon or pizza, they ask if they want gravy with it. The majority of the five year olds say yes. They then go to the carbs section and are offered mash or something else (chips, roasties, new potatoes). So some children then get mash with their baked potato! Then they will be asked if they want veg. this will often be either beans/spaghetti(!?) in tomato sauce or something like carrots etc. The number of children who end up with pizza, gravy, mash and beans/spaghetti is just depressing. I do keep trying to make the point that we are educating our children about balanced meals but I'm treated like a bit of a wierdo!
Incidently, often I see children walking past with ice cream and custard which they are allowed to get as there is no milk in the ice cream! Not allowed to have cake and custard with a drink of milk though as that's two portions of dairy!!
I could go on... but I'm sure you get the drift! I really think we should get rid of the snack bar idea of choosing combinations and just offer maybe 2 or 3 full meal choices full stop. E.g. pizza with baked potato and veg or gammon with new potatoes and veg.

I would agree with your suggestion at primary level yes.

We don't let our kids choose whetehr theyc an cross the road safely, whether they want to wear a raincoat opr go to bed... why on earth then assume capability to select a balanced diet independently?

I hate to say it but in the secondary school where I teach it's true that fewer kids eat school dinners now than before JO did his (excellent) campaign.

What is served in the canteen at my school is supposedly healthy food but it's actually overpriced, refined-carb-heavy shite. We don't sell chips, crisps or chocolate but what we do sell is low-grade crap even if it has got less salt and sugar in it. As a result kids bring in rubbish from home or buy sweets on their way to school with their dinner money so it's entirely counter-productive.

Also our dining area only seats 80 kids in a school of 800 so the whole eating experience is just plain horrible.

Ironically, the nearest place to eat is the cafe at the Sure Start over the road where the food is cheap, nutritious, made with care and served with a smile. Our students are obviously not allowed off the school premises but it drives me mad that one state run institution can be getting it so right when another can be getting it so spectacularly wrong.

We should all move to Finland.

[[http://www.pisa2006.helsinki.fi/finnish_school/school_day/school_inside_and_out.htm Yummy]

OK, let't try that again.

Yummy yummy

Wow Boffin.

Also as an aside I notice that Governments (all of them, really ( seem to laud Nordic / Scandinavian policies when it suits (eg free schools) but this sort of ting slips under the radar

Did you see the picture of the library?

It actually looks better than the uni library I have access to

Yes, but you would have to learn to speak a language with 13 cases.

And talk very quietly, and drink Cloudberry juice as a matter of choice.

The UK has its compensations.

In relation but maybe I should start a thread in AIBU, today my DS came home from playschool upset as his teachers told him he has an unhealthy diet as he eats a fair amount of pasta and pizza!!!!!!!!!!! Now, we are Italian, this is normal. WE also eat a lot of indian and south american food, aome african and experiment with eastern european, I carefully think about balancing every meal and am so annoyed at this. Pizza if home made or even from a 'proper' restaurant is not unhealthy, I has carbs, veg, various vitamins, protein and is NOT PROCESSED, frozen pizza and american style pizza is less healthy...... PASTA can be served in many ways, with various sauces and ingredients. I am particularly annoyed as he was told chicken nuggets were healthy!!!! Even if they arent processed they are still fried in a load of oil- this is the problem with eating in the UK- misunderstanding and ignorance towards food...........

Sorry for rant I will move over to AIBU now ! ... JO has always been a fan of Italian cuisine- which is not just Pasta and Pizza but this in particular has annoyed me!!!