School Dinners- the debate continues...

It's interesting to see the "proof of the pudding" stats rolling in about school dinners. The news isn't partucularly good for Jamie Oliver. Kids don't want healthy meals, don't recognise traditional good food and are generally suspicious of what is presented to them. A really good article can be found here on the BBC news site. From that article:

Irene Carroll, national chairman of the Local Authority Caterers Association, told the Five Live..."a key problem was that children were not being given healthy food by their parents.

"Jamie hung his programme on school meals. It was a shame because school meals weren't the real problem," she said.

I think she's right. The problem is that we in the UK eat badly: adults, teens and children. We have a culture of eating badly. Present wonderful vegetable bakes and nutricious stews for lunch and you may get some pupils eating and enjoying. You never know, you could convert the whole school to delicious meals. BUT at the end of the day, they'll spend £3 on the way home on a Mars Bar, a blue raspberry Slush Puppy and a can of Irn Bru. Breakfast may well be a couple of packets of crisps. Mum may well bring bags of chips to pass through the school fence as a snack and tea tonight will be Ross's finest frozen fare.
My advice? Give up on the teenagers and parents: start with the first school age children. Teach them the importance of fresh ingredients: make them food snobs. We all know that nag power is what prevails so if Suzie nags mum not to get Turkey Drummers then she'll have to give in and choose brocolli eventually. Oh and stop trash food being advertised ont he TV. That and penalise the convenience food industry through some obscure taxes.
Easy!