Jamie Olivers rant about packed lunches.

[misdee]

LONDON (Reuters) - Jamie Oliver, the television chef famous for his crusade to improve school dinners, lashed out at parents on Thursday over the food they give to their children.

Speaking at the launch of his new TV programme, Oliver said 70 percent of packed lunches in were "disgraceful" and he would like to see them banned.

He said the decisions parents made regarding the diets of their children
were sometimes just plain wrong.
"I've spent two years being politically correct about parents but it's time to say, if you're giving your young kids fizzy drinks, you're an a*hole and a tosser," Oliver said.

"If you give them bags of crisps, you're an idiot. If you aren't cooking them a hot meal, sort it out."

Oliver said headteachers were too frightened of some parents to tell them what they should give their child to bring to school.

He was particularly critical of parents who give their children Red Bull an energy drink when they are tired, saying it was not much better than giving them a line of cocaine.

Oliver's new programme, "Jamie's Return to School Dinners", is a follow-up to his successful Channel 4 series on improving school meals.

OK you lot perhaps you'd like to comment on my potential letter to the school

Dear Mrs X

In line with current advice from St Jamie of Oliver, I am writing in order to advise yu that from today, Samuel will be joining the other children and eating a decent hot dinner at lunch time.

For your information and as previously specified by his nutritionisht, Sam can only eat food that doesn't contain:
milk products
colourings
salicylates (these include tomatoes, all citrus fruits, apples, peaches, plums, grapes, raisins, apricots, red peppers- a full list is avaiolable on request and makes very depressingr eading)

In respect of his autistic diagnosis, I also advise that Samuel will not eat bread, meat except chicken skin, banana, soya milk. He will eat olives, green pepers, and werthers originals.

I look forward to passing the daily nightmare of apssing his =nutrition over to you, and would remind you that he won't drink water either.

With thanks

Peachy

Peachy, I think your circumstances are somewhat different, and would hazard a guess that StJO's () comments aren't aimed at folks with your circs. I dont think he was saying lunchboxes should be banned either....

Must be an absolute nightmare for you though. DD is allergic to cows milk protein (not so much now), and peanuts and that is trouble enough.

Good on him. FGS we'd all be shrieking with horror if anyone stood up and said "D'you know what? I couldn't give a toss if every child in the country is given three spoonfuls of neat E numbers instead of a school lunch every day" yet some people complain because JO tries to educate the kind of parents who don't see the problem with turkey twizzlers.

3 cheers for straight talking!

Some schools ban sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks and chocolate...why can't they all?

Oh peachy, what a nightmare for you (funny letter though ).

Fwiw, I think Jamie's brill, and his campaign for improving school dinners made a lot of people sit up and take notice, and got things moving in a way that would never have happened otherwise. I think before that TV series most people - including me - had no idea of the sort of crap that was being dished out for school dinners (I was horrified when, after the programme, I asked ds1 if he knew what a turkey twizzler was and he said "yes, we have them at school.")

Having said all that...I still wouldn't like Jamie to look in ds1's lunch bag

Just gone home from another exciting day at the chalk face to find this thread has exploded

I'm not a great fan of Jamie Oliver, but he does make some good points about some parents.

I don't think that it matters a huge amout if your kids get the odd treat, as lone as the rest of their food is OK.

And for that matter I don't think you need to feed kids amazingly complicated food to keep the happy, most kids quite rike repetition in their food. As long as you cover the food groups, and have a range of fruit and veg over the day, each lunch box doesn't have to be a gastronomic extravenganza.

But that said there is a hard core of small numbers of parents who let their kids eat crap all day, every day. They probably do this because they haven't got a clue themselves. We don't teach anything like enough nutition to our kids. I have seen 16 year olds who cannot eat with a knife and fork because the have only ever eaten fast food that you can pick up with your fingers.

I see kids eat 2-3 packets of crisps for lunch follwed by a can of red bull and a mars bar. And it is my buisness, because I have to deal with the kid when he goes off the wall after lunch.

We have to have some way of reaching this hard core of parents. Remember I once taught a kid who's mother though it was OK to bring a box of vodka chocolates to give to a class of year 8s. You cannot begin to understand just how stupid and thoughtless some parents are.

I can, my husband looks after the kids whilst I work on a weekend

At Theo's party last year i offered lemonade to the 8 year olds and one asked me 'dont you have any red-bull' He is not coming this year!

I think every now and then we need someone to shine a spotlight on things that we've sort of become accustomed to. In the grand scheme of things-- war in Iraq, chidren in orphanages in Romania, global terrorism, what goes into my dd's lunchbox is unimportant.

But when it's making headlines and being talked about in parliament, then you realise it is quite a big deal after all. And it is something we can all do something about.

well said Orlando, and it wouldn't get the attention it needs without someone passionate and contraversial whos willing to stand up and shout!

Wouldn't really work if he'd said "I've spent two years being politically correct about parents but it's time to say, if you're giving your young kids fizzy drinks, you're ok if you do it occasionally but if you do it 2-3 tmes a week be careful and if you do it everyday you really should analyse your kids diet and try to do a bit better!

Peachy - lol at your letter IYSWIM.

Will ds really only eat 3 things (well 4, if you include the Werthers)? And apart from what he mustn't eat obviously.

My children have a very varied pack lunch every day. I have a variety of fruits, not just apples and oranges. But a small pot of lychees and maybe cubed organic passion fruit. I try not to give any what products unless they have been very good and then i will bake myself the night before some wholemeal pittas which i fill with Morroccan Salad. I try not to give any chicken as it is too bland. I often make up little pots of sushi and sometimes make extra in case they want to share. I have to start this at 5am. On fridays I may give them some carrot cake, which i dont mind as I grow all my own carrots. Most of this preperation takes about an hour every morning and extra time during the week.

Sorry - was just in another world for a minute there where i had no life apart from my kids.

What was i going to say...
Oh yes. My kids have a sarnie, fruit, which they have to eat first, yoghurt and if I am being ultra daring a packet of crisps (which they dont always eat). and a bottle of water.
On friday after school they can get a comic or a sweet from the shop in the village.

Am I a bad mother? Now - where is that jeremy Kyle number...?

Holidaymum - I think it would work better TBH!

This debate has become so polarised between the supposedly uncaring ignorant parents who feed their kids an unchanging diet of sugar,additives, salt and fat (and yes I know that some DO exist) and those enlightened parents feed their kids on organic lentils and spring water and scream 'unclean' at anyone who eats a burger EVER!!! Most people fall in between those 2 positions - they get it more or less right most of the time.

What I don't understand is how this whole debate has moved on over the last few years to a position where any processed food is unacceptable. It seems to me that if you are trying to educate parents, telling them that you are a to*ser for EVER putting crisps in a lunch box or an idiot for EVER giving fizzy drinks is going to make the task seem impossible. It's setting the bar too high. I know people who never buy fruit - never cook anything that doesn't come out of a packet. You have to start gradually.

He'lle at a few things, but he is very unpredictable about those. For those who think it doesn't apply to him- well actually he does go to a mainstream school, so it does: the schools don't have different sets of rules for different children.

The way I read the report, it did suggest banning packed lunches, so it does apply to poele ina ll circumstances. FWIW I'm a huge believer in healthy eating (just unpacked the large riverford boxes LOL), and I think that banning specific iterms is fine, but pakced lunches overall just isn't.

I also think if you're going to demand kids eat healthy luches, a good place to start looking would be the terrible ones provided by the LEA's to those on benefits- a friend who is a Secretary actually took to binning them and feeding 40 kids each day at her school, because she was sick of giving them sarnies with nothing but a mouldy lettuce leaf and a rotten apple.
And you need to look at the costs involved, which for you or I are worth patying but may not be achievable for everyone. I just lived six weeks with access to neither a fridge ort fresh shops on a regular basis (once a week supermarket run) and was amazed how poor our diet was, it was essential to rely on tinned goods / peanut butter etc. That was 6 weeks for me; it's relaity for many.

Now, I've satted this policy before and I will again, and I know there is always the iditot who'll trade it for X grams of whatever is cool on the drugs front, but most parents I know on low incomes would be glad of it: pay each family £5 a week in fruit and veg vouchers per child under sixteen, this in part offset against child benefit rises, CB staying the same until the £5 level is reached.

Make it a compulsory planning regulation for planners to ensure that each estate / village has access to fresh food from a village shop, thereby preventing the problem my clients used to encounter of being stuck on the council estate (or indeed anye state if they don't drive) with X kids, a double buggy and a three mile trek to the supermarket. This would involve subsidising village shops if necessary.

(and if you can read all that you deserve an MBE LOL)

Peachy I totaly agree with you that friut and veg vouchers would be an excellent idea.....didn't this get put about as an idea a year or so ago?

Totaly agree that it is an issue for some families, however, redbull and mars bards cost money. Many of these kids on a crap diet are costing their parents big bucks each week. And not all school meals are crap.

I had a huge salad today (too big for me to finish) and a wonderful fruit salad for £1.60. Next time I will have a smaller salad which will bring the price down to £1.10....the price of a mars bar, packet of crisps and a can of coke?

Mb I agree and the thread atm about needing cheap food for family proves this as all the recipes on there are very healthy.

Jamie Oliver is arrogant, patronising and has a really irritating accent.
He is also, pretty much single-handedly, responsible for highlighting the appalling diet that thousands of children are subjected to day in, day out. He also cares enough about the future of children he will never meet to actually get off his arse and do something about it. I'm with the earlier poster - he deserves a knighthood.
FGS, he's not criticising the parents that are trying to get their children to eat healthily. He's talking about the parents that don't think at all about the crap they are feeding their children. We are on the edge of a cliff here. For the first time in generations we are at risk of raising children with a lower life expectency than our own due to poor diet, lack of exercise and obesity. I am gobsmacked that anyone would criticise the one person who has used their fame and expertise to try and do something about this.

Well put Yeahbut

He does deserve lots of praise and a Knighthood if you must.

Its just not that simple for me. Blame the ignorant parents. Why are they ignorant? Why aren't they bothered? Why don't they know better?

Not questions for Jamie Oliver, but it just doesn't sit right with me to say 'Oh its the stupid bloody lazy half wit parents'

I know what you mean MB and of course there are some idiots out there. these idiots need educating, but unfortunately are likely to give their kids a school lunch pass and the price of a bag of chips/ coke anyway, as soon as the kidsa re old enough . At H-s I met three types of bad feeders:
A) the ones who didn't give a shite
B) The ones who didn't know (scarily too many) and
C) the ones who desperately wanted to get it right but couldn't, for various reasons.

group A aren't going to listen, but maybe if we educate their kids, and focus on B and C we'll get somewhere?
And what about the free fruit scheme: lets extend it to ALL kids in ALL schools. And milk too, while we're at it.

I just don't see why banning lunchboxes ahs to be on the agenda.

(What does redbull taste like btw? looks horrid)

Peachy, the real problem is that there is next to no time in the curriculum at secondary to teach this. If schools follow the QCA curriculum for years 7-9 there is nowhere where they learn how to prepare a nutricious simple meal. They design a snack product (ffs), a birthday cake , a pizza and a sandwitch filling, but meat and two veg....nope.

Now I know that there are some amazingly competent and far thinking food tech teachers who subvert this crap, but in essance we can't guarentee that kids ever learn this stuff in secondary....since it is only compulsory at KS3.

Do yo know how much time tabled time I have to teach it in Biology?

One lesson over 3 years.

That's right

In all of years 7, 8 and 9 I have 70 minutes to talk to the kis about good food and diet!

So How can I over turn the ignorence that many have from their families and the shite peddled to them on TV. I've lost count of the number who have told me that their diet is good becaise 'Mu mum buys me Sunny D miss'

I was a rebel. I used 4 lessons to cover a balanced diet with year 8. It was "frowned upon".

But I still reckon it wouldn't make any difference. To start with, they aren't responsible for buying their food. Second, I'm not sure many of them are that bothered. It's a bit like smoking. The effects on their health NOW are not a sufficient deterrent.