Are you watching Jamie Oliver's school dinners?

[MunchedTooManyMarsLady]

Jamie's being given a run for his money. Loving it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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We all need to vote with our feet on this one, especially with the General Election probably being on 5th May.

Email your MP - find their details on the Politics page of the BBC News website - at the bottom of the front page there is a section - find my local MP - find out whether they have signed the bill supporting the Feed Me Better campaign.

Ask what their Partys policy is going to be over underfunding of school dinners

Grill any prospective Election cadidiates that come round door to door canvassing

sign www.feedmebetter.com!

Contact your schools catering supplier, asking what steps they are taking to improve standards

Contact your LEA and let them know what you think of the quality of the supplier for your County

Last but not least!, Email Ruth Kelly, Education Secretary, asking what the Labour Government are going to do about the funding of dinners

Whew! Think thats about it, unless anyone can think of any more?

FiMac

Ruth Kellys email is:

Email her: [email protected]

They made Jamie cry . The sons of lizards

too much hard work. pffffffft.

i used to work in a kitchen, and although some foods were frozen, we often didnt have ingrediants in so had to make and prepare food. was there 6am-3pm.

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The stress his wife must have doing the shopping that he then criticises! Also it was funny that both his daughters were eating their breakfast in their tripp trapp high chairs in front of the tv.

I wish I hadn't missed last weeks as it has been such an uplifting programme seeing the change in the children and the dinner ladies,

Tabloid f*cking journalists did. Hate 'em.

What about the asthma inhalers????

thought that was shocking.

dd1 is going onto packed lunches after easter. thats it. i know the food is processed stuff at her school, eugh.

that was amazing. think of the money the gov would save in prescriptions and also if the behaviour changed that much, school exclusions.ed psychs etc

Have just emailed Ruth Kelly.

Am going to email my mp, write to my mp and basically tell her/him exactly what I think about the government's current position on feeding our kids.

Watching what went into chicken nuggets made me want to puke. I'm so glad that my children like real food. I will only ever make the nuggets that have been posted on the numerous chicken nugget threads. Wasn't it gross to see all that raw chicken skin being blitzed up with the scrag ends of the chicken? [puke emoticon]

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I'm off to take some beta-blockers.

Far from uplifting here - I'm in a rage

How can they just ignore the impact that this crap has on our kids lives. Just shrug it off as too expensive, too difficult. FFS its our childrens futures were talking about.

I did actually feel really sorry for JO tonight - I felt that the tears and the dejection was real, rather than posed for the cameras

rickman, same here.

dd1 gets free fruit at school, and she will now eat carrot sticks and oranges, so feel a bit better about moving to packed lunches, as before dd1 wouldnt touch anythign healthy. i thought school dinners would be well balenced, (as they used to be) and she may eat better there but seems it just junk.

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The government refuse to see the big picture. The processed crap has to go. It's not about taking away choice from children - it's about not allowing them to eat processed crap.

The school is perfectly entitled to make its own chicken nuggets or burgers or pizzas but it is criminal that children should be offered processed food.

The extra cost spent on giving children a natural wholesome meal each day will be recovered many times over in the future with less having to be spent on them via the NHS or prison service.

I cannot believe it was ever allowed to get into this state. Parents have had the wool pulle dover their eyes and sent their kids off to school for years believing their children were being well-fed. I'm just pleased the truth has come out now.

I agree beatie but am concerned that now the programme has finished momentum will be lost and nothing will change. Was very upset at the end of last night's programme when they were talking about what Ruth Kelly had said. I think Jamie is asking for relatively little to make a huge difference and I can't believe that the Government are so short-sighted. Very

Have read further down the thread - thanks for RK's email FIMAC - off to email her right now...

rickman - the last school I taught at had reasonable school dinners, still way too much processed stuff to my mind, but not as bad as some.

What did shock me was the portion sizes. They were very small. I'd often think I had to teach a lot of children in the afternoon, who I didn't think had been given enough to eat to see them through to the end of the school day, especially given how much energy is expended in the playground.

If people are entitled to claim school dinners, then they should be able to do so in the knowledge that their children are being given decent size helpings of decent food.

I've just emailed Ruth Kelly, I didn't see this but have taped it and will watch it over the weekend.

One of the things I found absolutely disgraceful was that the dinner ladies were having to do unpaid overtime to make the real food project work.

Of course one of the reasons for feeding our kids processed shite that only needs to be heated up, is not just that the shite itself is much cheaper than real food, but that you only need four or six dinner ladies to do it. If you cook everything from scratch, you may need to double the workforce in the kitchen. Food preparation takes time. And so labour costs increase.

So there we go Caligula, back to shocking consequences as a result of effing contracted out services to save money. It makes me cross, it really does.

i feel what jamies is trying to do deserves a pat on the back like some of you im worried this will get forgotton about...............and things will drift back to unhealthy eating.

do you think my email was a bit ott??

FAO Ruth Kelly

Following the massive publicity received by the Jamie's School Dinners programme, doesn't Ruth Kelly think now is the right time to feed our (and her) children freshly-prepared, quality food instead of processed rubbish? My oldest daughter's school is considering an opt-out from the Local Authority's school meals provision, but surely we need change for EVERYONE, not just where parents/teachers have the time and are well-motivated? Otherwise, all of the money which the government is investing in education is a waste, because children fed a diet of additives and poor quality processed food cannot concentrate or perform well.

Yours

Bundle
mother of 2