Jamie Oliver - www.feedmebetter.com

[tvrforever]

You might not like the chap (although I do and have complete respect for him) but his school dinners campaign & petition is a great way to help kids :-

www.feedmebetter.com

I'm not political in the slightest but as a parent this is going to be very high on my list come the next selection of crooked scum to occupy seats in westminster....

[BrianTheYank]

A good first step would be to have the parents teach the kids how to eat right. Then they could try packing them a nutricious lunch instead of buying one from school.

[Mrs Fish]

ananova said:

PM Blair backs Jamie's dinners Prime Minister Tony Blair is backing celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's campaign to persuade schools to ditch junk food and serve up healthier meals to pupils. The Government is drawing up plans to spend tens of millions of pounds rebuilding and re-equipping school kitchens so that meals can be cooked on site, while dinner ladies will be given additional training to help them create appetising menus. Writing in The Observer, Mr Blair acknowledged the strength of parental anger over the diets currently on offer at many schools. He promised to set up an independent School Food Trust to build on the work done by Mr Oliver in his Channel 4 series, Jamie's School Dinners. The moves will form part of a mini "children's manifesto" to be published outlining Labour's pitch to parents on issues from diet to paedophiles targeting children through the internet. It will argue that, far from fearing a 'nanny state', families want the Government to intervene to protect children's health and safety. In his article, Mr Blair wrote that the new Trust will "draw on the remarkable work of Jamie Oliver in schools, of the Soil Association in encouraging the use of organic and local produce in school meals, and on the best advice on nutrition and eliminating processed foods." He added: "It may take a little time to change children's tastes, but it will be worth the effort if we can get them enjoying healthy and good quality food at school. We will also ask Ofsted to inspect the quality of school meals." Mr Oliver told the newspaper: "If changes are made it will only be a matter of months before British health, education and farming could be affected for the better. It could be one of the biggest food revolutions that England has ever seen."

He didn't really have much choice, other than supporting it

[mxdi]

ananova said:

PM Blair backs Jamie's dinners He added: "It may take a little time to change children's tastes, but it will be worth the effort if we can get them enjoying healthy and good quality food at school. We will also ask Ofsted to inspect the quality of school meals."

I thought they already did inspect school meals? A couple of the schools I used to look after had their meals inspected when Ofsted were in.

Edit to tidy up

>> Edited by mxdi on Sunday 20th March 08:49

[bilko2]

I saw his show the other day and i have to say i was impressed. jamie was making sure the children didn't want back their chicken nuggets after he had gone by showing them how they mechanically reclaim meat. As well as processing the fat and sugars that go into them. Good shock tactics i thought.
It does supprise me though that it takes someone like Jamie Olliver to get the government moving on something like this. Or has jamie handed them a hearts and minds campaingn to win over 'mum' voters before the election?. Either way, lets hope it continues.

[Arthur Jackson]

My two-penneth....

This year the council decided, when awarding the contract for the school meals supplier, er....not to.
That's right they said that no-one had submitted a tender they liked (or whatever) and so we had to take the decision to go with someone off our own bat.

We have a working kitchen so that's an advantage, but the equipment is old, so we had it 'adopted' by a meals contractor who I shan't name.

We try to give healthy meals to the children, it's a policy of ours, but........

If the children don't want to eat the meal and we fall below the break even point, with regard to meals take up, then we start subsidising meals. That money has to come from somewhere and it's nice to have books and stuff .

So in a nutshell:

Yes, we think Jamie's idea is great.
Yes, we've been trying it a lot longer than Jamie.
But if you haven't got a chirpy, cheeky, mockney celebrity coming to your school to cajole the kids into trying something new then there's only a finite length of time to get things moving before finance deems that you have to feed the children what they want...they won't change their minds over night.


Ergo, it's the PARENTS job to make their children eat properly.

[parrot of doom]

Simple solution really - don't give kids a choice.

As my parents said, "you eat what you're given, and if you don't eat it it will be there again later".

[Ferg]

That's fine for parents to say, but by the sounds of it from Arthur's point of view that would just mean fewer meals and a big financial burden on the school.

I know from my own experience that schools MUST supply meals to some children if they want one.....

[basil brush]

parrot of doom said:

Simple solution really - don't give kids a choice. As my parents said, "you eat what you're given, and if you don't eat it it will be there again later".

I agree totally. Do you think kids would turn up to maths lessons if they had a choice? Why allow them to eat unhealthy crap just because it's the easy way out? Provide proper food only and if the kids don't want it then the parents can provide them an alternative (packup etc).

One of the problems is that a lot of the parents (and the dinner ladies) were brought up on similar crap and don't realise the problems.

[mxdi]

We never had burgers when I was at school, we had cottage pie or nowt!
I'm not saying they cant have a choice... whats wrong with a choice of a main dinner like cottage pie, jacket spud with tuna, a cheese salad. There you go three things to choose from, all healthier than a burger or chicken nuggets.

Just seen on the news about Tony Blairs backing, they just reported that they are updating all the kitchens and will train the cooks to cook.
So where is all this money coming from? Equipment costs a lot of money
And what about the staffing- if cooks are cooking they will need extra staff like they used to have - most kitchens used to have 6 or 7 staff in them when they used to cook from scratch, will they be getting extra staff? where will the money come from for this?

All very good, but its going to take a lot of time and money. I mean where does 10's of millions of pounds appear from, when we have schools and the NHS suffereing already?

>> Edited by mxdi on Sunday 20th March 13:05

[basil brush]

mxdi said:

We never had burgers when I was at school, we had cottage pie or nowt! I'm not saying they cant have a choice... whats wrong with a choice of a main dinner like cottage pie, jacket spud with tuna, a cheese salad. There you go three things to choose from, all healthier than a burger or chicken nuggets. Just seen on the news about Tony Blairs backing, they just reported that they are updating all the kitchens and will train the cooks to cook. So where is all this money coming from? Equipment costs a lot of money And what about the staffing- if cooks are cooking they will need extra staff like they used to have - most kitchens used to have 6 or 7 staff in them when they used to cook from scratch, will they be getting extra staff? where will the money come from for this? All very good, but its going to take a lot of time and money. I mean where does 10's of millions of pounds appear from, when we have schools and the NHS suffereing already? >> Edited by mxdi on Sunday 20th March 13:05

If it means a few pence on the cost of a school dinner is it not money worth spending. If the ingredients costs 37p per portion now where is the rest of the cost to parents going?

[tinman0]

tvrforever said:

You might not like the chap (although I do and have complete respect for him) but his school dinners campaign & petition is a great way to help kids :-

Jamie Oliver is beginning to whine a bit nowadays. The shrill was so great on parky last night i turned over.

[Pigeon]

ananova said:

The Government is drawing up plans to spend tens of millions of pounds rebuilding and re-equipping school kitchens so that meals can be cooked on site,

They're not already? They always were when I was at school. Didn't stop them being shite though.

ananova said:

while dinner ladies will be given additional training to help them create appetising menus.

Well, that's a step in the right direction... they certainly need[ed] something doing, since simple foods that I enjoyed at home - like potatoes - used to taste utterly revolting when cooked by the school - how on earth do you screw up cooking boiled spuds? They must have had some negative training (bussing?) I reckon. Not to mention the use of cuts of "meat" which contained so much gristle even a dog wouldn't eat them, as if they came from a special breed of cow developed to maximise connective tissue at the expense of muscle mass.

At one school, one of the lads organised a petition to the kitchens complaining about the quality of the food. Naturally, nearly everyone signed it. Apparently the head cook broke down in tears when she received it; the headmaster called the school together for an extended bollocking, and the meals remained shite. Pity Jamie Oliver wasn't around then.

[simpo two]

The food at my school was appalling. Eventually so many compaints got back to parents and thus to the Head that the top brass came in on a meal to inspect it.

Except they'd made the mistake of telling the kitchen in advance - needless to say we had a very good lunch that day...

[seafarer]

parrot of doom said:

Simple solution really - don't give kids a choice. As my parents said, "you eat what you're given, and if you don't eat it it will be there again later".

Exactly right! There are too many parents who will placate their children with junk food to head off a tantrum. Not my parents. Mom made one dinner that we all ate, that or nothing. We couldn't leave the table until we ate at least a serving of veggies. Sure, some nights as a child it would turn into an hours-long stand-off, but better that than to let kids whine to get what they want. There's no respect and self discipline taught by placating a child. Letting your kid eat whatever processed food they want and refuse to try new things isn't just bad nutritionally, but also encourages them to turn their nose up at the new and different. I've heard parents say things like "Oh, Timmy won't eat that." Why? Who's in charge? It's pathetic.

[jessica]

I am afraid I pander to my daughter She is a vegetarian.
But my boys all eat proper food.

Tonight they are having beefburgers.
Proper homemade ones,made from minced steak.
and we have recently bought a juicer.
They love experimenting with it.

I do indulge them occasionally on kid crap as we call it,because to deny them it would mean they would crave it.
but even the one son who hates veggies,will eat green salad and loves baby leaf spinach.
Food should be fun,and we should teach our children to have fun experimenting with food.
How many kids in this modern day society know how to cook?

mine do.
they love making bread and home made pizza.where they get to choose the toppings.

If they need a snack then its a cheese toasty or beans or 9p a packet noodles.

[parrot of doom]

Good for you Jessica

I heard Mr Oliver complaining that he'd spotted some parents handing their kids food through the playground bars after they refused to eat what he'd cooked for them

He also told of kids bringing in packed lunches, the contents of which were those Dairylea lunchables, and a can of Red Bull.

[tvrforever]

Gentle bump as the petition closes on Easter Monday at midnight...

240,000 so far - you know it makes sense :-

www.feedmebetter.com

[parrot of doom]

I've signed it, thanks for the link

[tvrforever]

Go on you know you want to