Top of the class
Now that some of my grandchildren are of school-going age, I’m even more concerned about the endless struggle to protect them from gobbling down rubbish. What a help it would be to parents if the Health Minister, Mary Harney, were to forbid or even discourage fast food outlets from giving free toys and drinks to young children.
It would also be a lot easier to get children to eat a bowl of delicious and nourishing porridge if all the other children at school weren’t collecting toys out of cereal packets.
What public spirited supermarket chain will take the health of our children seriously and remove crisps, fizzy drinks and sweets from beside the tills?
What we put in our children’s mouths is more important than what we put on their bodies or in their brains. It is increasingly obvious that what they eat affects not only their physical growth and immune system but their behaviour and ability to concentrate.
Jamie Oliver’s television series highlighted the deplorable state of school meals in Britain. The Soil Association, Britain’s most highly-respected organic organisation, highlighted the problem when it launched the Food for Life pilot scheme in five schools in 2003.
It discovered children were being fed what Peter Melchett, a former environment minister, called ‘muck off a truck’. He used this term to describe the low quality and low price processed foods that were dominating school dinners served by contract caterers.
This was not a slur on dinner ladies but a condemnation of the food they were forced to provide with a budget of only 31p per child per meal. Jamie’s Oliver’s TV series sent shockwaves through Britain. In an election year, the government was quick to respond so the budget has been increased and many new initiatives are underway. Better still, it focused everyone’s attention, albeit for a brief period, on the deteriorating quality of food as a result of the fixation on producing the maximum food at the minimum cost to the detriment of quality and nutritional content.
The reality that much of the food we now eat is nutritionally deficient, a fact well known by the FDA, is gradually dawning on more and more people. In Ireland, few schools provide school lunches so the responsibility falls on parents to provide a nutritious school lunch.
There is no excuse for schools who sell sugary drinks, crisps or sweets to pupils; no principal can plead ignorance at this point. The argument that profits are reinvested in sports facilities or computers is illogical.
In Britain the school meal revolution, pre-Jamie Oliver, was spearheaded by Jeanette Orrey. She has been catering manager at St Peter’s Primary School, East Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, for 14 years. She is also schools meals policy adviser to the Soil Association.
Jeanette has won numerous awards, including the Observer Food Award for “the person who has done most for the food and drink industry” in 2003. She lives in Nottingham with her husband and has three sons.
Jeanette believes in simple, traditional dishes with occasional modern twists, made with the freshest local, seasonal and - where possible - organic ingredients.
Now, she has written a family cookbook full of tasty, healthy and practical recipes that are easy to make.
In a climate of rising child obesity and food-related scares, The Dinner Lady’s quiet food revolution reveals how to put Jeanette’s simple ideas into practice. Also included are her tips on getting even the fussiest children interested and excited by food, both at school and at home; guidance for busy parents on how to make life in the kitchen easier; notes on nutrition, organics and the hidden dangers of processed food; and how to make mealtimes an enjoyable experience.
The Dinner Lady is published by Bantam Press at £16.99.
