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.

Even if they do legislate they need the teachers onside too- they have a fruit or plain biscuit snack rule here for the mid-morning, yet two of DS's classmates take pepproni and chocolate.

With the thing about not going to play if you don't eat your lunch. Isn't this about being healthy and doesn't stopping children playing go against that?
Surely playing is being healthy.

Haven't time to read the whole thread (something tells me I might have to make time) but I wanted to say, good on you Jamie Oliver. God love him for taking it upon himself to tell it like it is. There's no excuse for feeding kids junk. It's not fair on them, and it's not fair on the people around them.

I'm not saying I'm perfect and my kids are, albeit vaguely, aquainted with the products of Golden Wonder and the like, but some kids live on this stuff and frankly, it's abuse.

I'm a dinner lady (Lunchtime Supervisor - we like to be posh )

We encourage the kids to eat as much of their packed lunch as possible, in the right order as well, but if they refuse there isn't a lot we can do. No point in them rushing their food either as they are not allowed to go and play until the majority have finished.

Sharing isn't allowed and they all have to take their own rubbish home so parents can at least see what is eaten, no throwing sandwiches in the bin and pretending. We give the little ones stickers to encourage them to eat the good stuff. That can have a surprising effect on the parents too.

It's not about punitive stopping playing Juule- it's just that at most schools, as soon as they finish they can play now. So, if they don't open their bags and say OK I have finished then off they go. Surely going without lunch is not healthy either?

As a child, we all had to wait until our table had all finsihed (basic table amnners imho), and we wouldn't have gotten away without eating at least our main bit (sandwich / soup / salad)- I think that was much better

Pyramid that sounds fair, just wish mroe schools operated like that

The people who hate Jamie Oliver are the people who have something on their concience IMO. If you're doing a good enough job feeding your kids then you won't be able to rustle up such strong emotions against a bloke who's genuinely trying to help the nation's kids.

I'm not being smug or claiming to be perfect, but I know I'm doing what I can and will strive to improve and thanks to Jamie for keeping up the info and the pressure.

PLUS why should my kids be pointed at and laughed at for having wholemeal bread or salads in their lunchboxes? It's seriously skewed.

Thanks Spidey. yep I'm not trying ahrd enough to feed DS1. it's all my fault and his Sn have zilch to fo with any of it. REMEBER as JimJams said, these rules apply to ALL kids in ALL schools.

My fruit and veg is organic, I make my own cakes / snakcs etc and am V proud of their diet, indeed the dietician at the hospital could not find a way to improve it. It occasionally looks a bit shite to outsiders (because DS is on a high cal diet), but i can promise you my conscience is clear.

Now, if JO could say 'with obvious exceptions, these rules should apply'.... have no issues whatsoever. but he doesn't.

I haven't read the whole thread but if your concience is clear peachy, as it seems to be, then don't hate Jamie, educate him.

He's doing a fantastic job for the majority of people.

I don't know the special needs argument (and will read up if I get the time today on this thread) but I appreciate there are extreme dietary complications in many cases.
I don't ever see how crisps and fizzy drinks can be a good idea. Therefore in my mind Jamie can't possibly be held to account for slagging off fizzy drinks and crisps. They are crap. I've fed them to my kids myself and felt bad about it, but that doesn't make me hate Jamie.

FGS there are real enemies out there.

btw peachy I don't quite see how you took my post personally. Possibly because I haven't read the thread. I certainly wasn't meaning to judge you personally.

surely he means with obvious exeptions, hes not stupid. he is tryin to target the NON CARING parents that need to be educated

The obvious exceptions don't get followed up at legal level whether he thinks they are obvious or not- these laws about healthy food apply to alls chools, including SN, which is great if your kid eats nopthing ut chicken nuggets (for instance). I can see why people assume these things are obvious but trust me, they never are, SN kids just get forgotten in these debates. Poeple say we should change things- well I do get that, but at the same time you're looking by and large at a bunch of exhausted aprents who spend their days just trying to get the most basic things for their children (education, etc)- there's limits to what we can do.

Spidey, probably it was coz you didn't read the thread but it wasn't really you, it was more that sometimes I come on here and repeatedly try and explain the SN issue and then find myself repeating myself over and over. And of course, i don't actrually like not giving DS a 'proper' diet.

Fizzy drinks saved us from having DS hospitalisee wehn he went into drink refusal mode on the hottest day of last year, and the NHS Direct had an ambulance on stand by if the crappy drink (can't recall now if it was cola or cheapo ribena) couldn't be forced into him, and iirc JimJams son was eating crisps during a time he wouldn't each much else? may remember that wrong.

I hadn't read the original article but I saw some of it quoted in the Times today.

The reason he lost his rag was when a mother said that shepherds pie and spag bol was 8posh and went on to give her 1 year old, yes1* year old Coke.

And I'm with him on this one, that is stupid

i can't wait till his kids grow up and are papped comming out of KFC lol

I just don't think it is any of his business. If he saw DS's lunchbox I am sure he would frown cos he doesn't know the limitations to his diet due to Severe Allergies and an associated fussiness. Allergies often breed a bad relationship with food as you can probably imagine.

Some people might say it is stupid and irresponsible for TV celebs to work excessive hours no doubt causing stress which could well lead to ill health but I would say it is none of their business.

THe thing is though, taking allergies etc out of the loop, there are some children who's diet is so poor it does become other people's problems, as weel as the child/parents. And then I think that it does become other peoples' buisness.

So when a kid goes off the wall in school and becomes violent because he drank 3 cans of red bull, it is the school's buisness. In the same way it is our buisness if they come to school with porn, or offensive wepons.

I have total sympathy about the allergies/sn aspect though. Shouldn't this be covered by the DDA?

Yes but where do you stop? I am sure that people's/children's diet in some cases leaves a lot to be desired but if there is evidence that Red Bull can cause violent behaviour in anyone then it should be taken off the market. IIRC it is banned in Canada.

Not sure how the DDA could help. I would love for DS to have school meals at least some of the time but they cannot gaurantee that the food would be safe.

But I would have tought tha if, by insisting on the same food for all children...ignoring allergies and things like ASD issues with food, discriminates against some children.

And there are lots of things that can tip kid's behaviour over the edge. God help us, the school was daft enough to sell additive laden panda pops. The effect on lots of the kids was ghastly, and for some children with ADHD it was unbearable (for them, as well and the other kids). We stopped selling them, and behaviour imroved. But some kids still bring them in, and still go loopy after drinking them.

Don't you think that we should have a right to ban things which have such an obviously detrimental effect on the kids' behaviour and learning?

I'm not a food nazi, I'm really not, but the effect of some of this stuff has to be seen to be believed

The school should have a right to ban anything it wants as far as I can see, it's when it gos off to theis celeb induced level of Blairite fanaticism that I get worried.

I don't know what it is about JO, but I find he says it and it happens, regardless.

That would be no guarantee though PC. T he mainstream school refused to use their common sense where ds1 was concerned. They seemed to think that he should be able to behave exactly like the other children. They didn't seem to understand that they were doing the equivalent of saying to a child in a wheelchair "you have to get up and play a game of football and I won't listen to any excuses".

Would be good if special schools were allowed to exercise their discretion (although they do more, even if their hands are tied in terms of lunches).

I think that it is maddness to expect special schools to follow the same pattern as mainstream.

Afterall getting children to try new textures/food is more part of the curriculum at special schools, than simply a mealtime issue

Agreed MB and JimJams- I think some things can be banned though, like red bull, for instance, which is designed to give a high caffeine experience. teachers should automatically be able to use discretion, although tbh (and in my pesonal bitter experience) some wouldn't be arsed.

I have used Red Bull to get a lift when exhausted and bearing in mind I hardly have any caffeine in my diet you would think it would give me a real lift. Sadly not. A cup of cappuccino however has me shaking and giddy.

I have no problem with schools bot allowing certain things that cause real behavioural problems.

Many of you are pointing out that of course, this is all aimed at 'other' parents, not us lovely, well-educated, caring mummies.
I agree that JO has done wonders to (almost) single-handedly draw attention to the crapness of school dinners - afact which we have all been aware of for years, but sadly it takes a tv programme to make the government act. However, I fear there is a real danger that when the spotlight turns to packed lunches there will be a knee-jerk reaction from schools, with the blankert banning of all crisps, 'sweets' chocolate and fizzy drinks. there will be no recourse of ''but he only gets crisps once in a blue moon'' or ''but I baked it myself and it's all organic but little sugar in''.
I do object to being dictated to as to what I put in my kids' packed lunch. For what it's worth, they have brown bread (often home-made, 3 or 4 portions of fruit/veg in. but because my child hates school so much I put a treat in every day - a bag of no msg crisps, a 'fruity' bar, a home-made cake or biccie, sometimes fruit jiuce with sparking mineral water. All these things could be 'banned' soon and I bloody resent it.
By all means, ban junk food advertising on TV, ban cartoon tie-ins with crap food, improve labelling in all supermarkets, teach kids to cook in schools, make kids have more exercise at schools - but Keep your nose out of our lunchboxes!!!