Ever since the iconic images of parents stuffing fast food through school gates like deranged chimpanzees on the wrong side of the bars, the fight over school dinners as launched by Jamie Oliver back in 2006 has become anything but simple. Why? Because in the UK, food is inseparable from class.
To eat well means that you are probably a snob. Really. Hugh F-W got it in the neck for telling Tesco shoppers to cut down on cheap chicken and invest in a more expensive humanely-reared bird on the basis that it could be used for more meals, right down to the last scurrick. He was, ahem, hen-pecked into the ground for doing so and while it is unfortunate that he did so in such a well-spoken manner, the facts are that wellbeing and health are essentially classless: death IS the great leveller and will come for you in tweeds or shellsuit regardless. On that basis, and no other should we consider food and most importantly: our children’s food.
We have the highest rate of obesity in Europe, 25% of kids are overweight or obese and current estimations are that obesity, and its related problems, cost the NHS a massive £4 billion a year. Not to mention the effect of poor nutrition on children’s behaviour, performance and self-esteem in school. This is not rocket science, it is apocalyptic.
School dinners or packed lunches account for about a third of every child’s daily food intake and approximately one half of Britain’s seven million school children eat a packed lunch. According to a study carried out by Leeds University in 2010, only 1.1% of packed lunches then met the nutritional standards of a school dinner. The study looked at 1,300 lunchboxes taken to school by pupils aged eight and nine and found that crisps, sweets and sugary drinks took precedence over fruit, vegetables and milk-based products.
Poor packed lunches have nothing to do with class. Let’s face it: a fruit shoot costs more than an apple. A packet of crisps? More than a banana. And the price of brown bread over white bread is not going to send you into arrears on your mortgage payments. Sending kids off to school with the nutritional equivalent of a Type 2 diabetes time bomb and expecting them to concentrate in class is either ignorant, lazy, irresponsible or all three.
One of the arguments from an anti-Oliver burger-pushing mum was that Jamie’s meals made kids too “picky” and they preferred to skip lunch completely. So how does that explain the almost cult-like status of maverick school chef John Rankin at Penair School in Truro? The bandana-clad, ex-white rafting instructor turned chef has kids eating frogs’ legs, camel, braised python and snails. Where only 30 kids a day used to queue for lunch, there are now 400. Picky or just over-indulged?
Never has the issue of eating at school been such a hot potato – a cash-strapped Spain will be charging €3 for children to bring in a packed lunch from September. Since the economic crisis, Spanish parents have been saving money by packing lunches and subsequently schools are losing vital funds normally made by selling hot meals. Earlier this year, 9-year-old food blogger, Martha Payne, had over 5 million hits on her NeverSeconds blog which documented her school meals in pictures and used a rating system based on health and the number of mouthfuls for each meal. The blog was banned, then not banned, and now Martha is very nobly using her internet fame to raise money for charity.
The default argument to Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners campaign is: nanny state. Who is he to tell us how to feed out kids? Why should we listen to him? Who does he think he is? The answer? He’s a professional and we turn to professionals for advice and expertise. Packing your kids a decent lunch has nothing to do with class, money or the nanny state. We simply owe it to our next generation.
I agree with almost all of your comments here, the one problem is that as educated, middle class people that we are (i challenge anyone who reads this to say they are not) we truly do not understand the huge divide that still stands between the lower socio economic sectors of our very own towns and villages and us. I work for the NHS and am on the front line of the fight against obesity and the related medical problems that these incur and you cannot just tell them how to eat and why to eat it! They are sometimes into the 4th generation of eating poorly, bad education, bad housing and relying on the state to manage them. I dont agree with the nanny state but for the government they have to operate to the lowest common denominator and for those people in that position it is essential that it remains?
Hi David, intelligent response and from someone who actually has some real experience of dietary issues, I appreciate that. The weird thing is that it seems to be a British problem – food for the less well off in places like Italy is still good quality simple fare – maybe it IS much more to do with food knowledge and education – we seem to have gap in it somehwere… and fewer kids are being made to do subjects such as Home Economics which are essential, life skills, maybe that’s somehting Hugh could think about too..
I concur with david.One of our children has left a public school to go to an Outer Hebridean high school, perhaps because i write about food (and get out there and do the stuff in deprived areas), I quizzed him over his Hebridean lunches compared to those at school in the South. “Both as c**p as each other, how can school food compare with what I get at home.” I’ve given up asking any more, because the usual response is “so dull I can’t be bothered to think about it”. Of course, it is important that school meals are decent, but it is not as important for the middle class child whose parents will read and rant about it, as for the child whose parents have a heap of other more pressing problems to deal with.That child can’t raid a fridge that is full of decent food at home.
interesting thoughts and yes, not what you’d expect re the comparison of the Hebrides and the south, it is obviously a nationwide problem to do with big contracts that schools tkae out with catering companies. Yes, I am with you that some kids are luckier than others, particularaly if they have someone like you feeding them! Thanks for the thoughts and keep up the excellent food work, Rachel
We do and well said. I just encouraged my readers to feed their kids blackberry buns as a school lunch treat …… must revise that post to make sure they know I am not letting them eat cake for lunch! We made a decision when our first child came along to only cook for ‘us’. Now, four kids later, they are all terribly healthy and honest-to-god….eat everything. It starts at home and we do owe it to the next generation to give them the right start in life.
totally agree Mona, hoome cooking has had a masssive influence on me – makes you less picky and less able to eat crap! Very impressed with your philosophy and the blackberry buns sound lush! Surely homemade cake would swing the argument for homemade everytime?!
Great great post, I’m trying not to rush this comment, but I fear it may still come out garbled. Anyway, I do totally agree with you but I do see plenty of children from ‘middle class’ homes (my kids go to a state primary in a reasonably affluent village) as well as the less well off ones, going into school with things like those yoghurt covered fruit drop things which are full of sugar, fruit shoots etc – it’s not just a class thing – people genuinely don’t get it – or it’s ‘easier’ because ‘they work’ (so do I) to put processed food into lunches. It’s total rubbish to say that children will stop eating too, or become more picky if you take away chips etc – may be once or twice, but no child ever starved themselves and if they don’t have money for ‘snacks’ and only have the packed lunch or healthy school lunch available, they will soon eat it. To be honest if what you serve them at home is healthy, they would eat a healthy packed lunch because it’s what they are used to – and therein is the nub of this – it’s not just a question of a healthy school/packed lunch, but a question of healthier more balanced eating generally – and as David says, this goes very deep
By the way, on packed lunch days, I do give my kids a homemade cake as part of their lunch – it will always have fruit and or oats in it (polishes halo)
some very interesting thoughts, thank you and I do believe you should be polishing your halo! cake with fruit? genius, in fact I just made one this morning, it must be good for you! I think it’s down to food regulation and the lack of it from our government who are too afraid to tackle the big corporations, individuals have to then make choices, educated or not. Frightening really. Your children sound very lucky.
A good article and I wholeheartedly agree with most of it. But I would argue with David that food is not classless. The UK has a much more industrialised history of food, whilst Italy that you quoted in your response to David has a much more recent history of growing and cooking food, so comparing ourselves to Europe is not so easy. We have several generations here in the UK that grew up on tins and packets and have no cultural knowledge of cooking and eating real food. Bringing back home economics in school would be a good start at redressing some of these issues.
fair point, I spend a lot of my time comparing us to Italy and we are different beasts, I am still amazed when my mum (a very good cook) gets great pleasure from buying very cheap pork because she thinks it’s a bargain. Different mentality I guess.