As some of you know we have been having a really good natter about Jamies School Dinners and I think its the general consensus this subject is one to get on the soapbox at.

Anyone thats been watching this programme will have been appalled :sick: at what we are feeding our children at school.

School dinners should be the opportunity to give every child a chance at least one healthy meal a day in this country. One of the schools that took part in the healthy food intiative commented that they have seen behaviour improve and kids stopped using their inhalers.

How aware are you what kids have for school dinner?

As I work in a nursery I do see what the kids get for dinner each day, and the school is really trying to make it better.

Having three of my own, I also know what they would get at their school and it's not great. I let my two eldest ones try dinners for a term and they both came out starving each day. When i asked them what they had eaten, the mixtures were appaling..pasta and mashed potoates. No veg because there waan't any and no 'meat' or fish cos it was all gone by the time their year group went in....so I took them straight off dinners and went back to packed lunches.....

Are they the answer to a fat nation because no one will eat them?





One day I will find the man/or woman that invented tabyoker pudding and I will torture them to death



I don’t care how you spell it so f*ekoff

Are they the answer to a fat nation because no one will eat them?





One day I will find the man/or woman that invented tabyoker pudding and I will torture them to death



I don’t care how you spell it so f*ekoff

Could you take out the inventor of rice puuding, semolina and custard aswell then please......yeughhhhhhhhhh :sick: :sick: :sick:

Could you take out the inventor of rice puuding, semolina and custard aswell then please......yeughhhhhhhhhh :sick: :sick: :sick:

Defiantly Semolina

The other two are not bad if you have the ambrosia tined ones

I hate real rice pudding I always and mean always get a bit of skin in mine and it makes me gag

I dont have a clue about school dinners - apart from the fact that Jade refuses them....Lewie is at college and takes packing up, but he thinks they used to be ok, but that is no recommendation!!!

I havent seen Jamies School Dinners as it clashes with The Apprentice.....but I caught one of the trailers and that made me feel ill :sick: something to do with chicken nuggats......

I think that school dinners should be a proper balanced diet, NOT junk food, when I was at school (mind you thats over 20 years ago :blush: ) we did get "proper meals", although there were always fish and chips on a friday - good old Catholic school :laugh:

Like discipline, healthy eating is important to a child - and I think that this is what lets us down now, in the good old days, if a child didnt get discipline at home, they got it at school, now there are many children that dont get either, who are anti social delinquents - but they can spout their human rights to you :mad2:

Its gone the same way with school dinners, in the old days, a child got a balanced meal at lunchtime, usually a cooked one, they played more games and had out door activites, competitive sports.....now, kids eat junk for breakfast, lunch and dinner - I used to see a little girl on her way to school last year, and she was always clutching a packet of biscuits and munching on them, she told me one day that it was her breakfast, cos mum has to sort the baby out, when I saw her mum, she was nothing more than a baby herself.....

I think one of the biggest problems is, children are having babies, they are losing vital parts of their own growth and education in life, they havent matured and learnt enough about life to become a parent! The thought of Jade or Lewie having to be responsible for another life terrifies me, neither of them can look after themselves, let alone a demanding bundle that is completely helpless and at their mercy!

The other thing that sprang to mind was they dont teach home econimics like they used to do they - I know things have changed and its not the "little woman at home Stepford style", but shouldnt EVERY child be taught how to run a home, not just girls, and shouldnt this be a compulsary part of the curriculem??? Cos I know Jade and Lewie think we have a money tree in the back garden and the the toilet and bath are both self cleaning devices :angry:

Oh Queenie.....you are so right.. When I was at school we did home Ec once a week and we had to take in all the indregients for whatever the teacher decided we were cooking.. My boys have never cooked properly in school. Eldest did make pizza for which they had to take packet mix for the base, tomato puree for the topping and already grated cheese...and the cooking in that was???

Although I do remember my dad storming into schoo and telling the cookery teacher in no uncertain terms that we were not made of money and he would not be sending in ingredients for stuf we would not eat once taken home. :laugh: But I never cooked anything we didn't eat....and neither did the rest of the class, cos she used to check with us first!!! :wacko:

I have been appalled for years now about the UK's eating habits - truly I am disgusted with what the majority put in their mouths [no dirty comments please!!].

But 'Jamie's Dinner's' highlighted the problem at base level, base level being 4 - 9 year old children!! I personally think it is an utter crime that parents should feed their children the crap that these food producers churn out of the backside of dead animals.

So IMO the parents are at fault in the main, yes I can also blame the food producers and I do and I will. How dare they put chicken bones, chicken skin and the remnants off the bottom of their shoes into chicken nuggets that get fed to our children. And yes that goes into the nuggets that are on sale in the supermarkets - excuse me whilst I puke!!

But how dare the government sanction this!!!

God I really get beyond furious, I get beyond incandescant with fury and rage at the KAK people feed themselves let alone their children!!!!!

I have whinged on to my mate Kate this afternoon so much that she is going to tackle her son's headmistress tomorrow about the school dinners situation; she wants answers and you can get answers here:


http://http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/J/jamies_school_dinners/index.html

Jamies got a petition going on this one with loads of recipes for cheap meals.

http://www.feedmebetter.com/

In defence of school puddings, one of my old dinner ladies used to make the best custard, rice pudding and spottyoaker there was going (semolina well thats just plain odd, unless its got a spot of strawberry jam in the middle).

Have just finished school placement. Was appalled that all veg was out of a tin - no wonder the children decided they did not like it, plus it was in salted water in the tin - so much for not adding salt to the childrens food. They do have a good scheme giving each child a piece of fruit and a carton of milk each day which the children happly have. But school dinners let them down.

I have signed the petition, although I no longer have children at school, my grandchildren are. Their school does not even provide hot dinners which after watching Jamies prog is just as well. Their parents watched this programme after much urging by myself and have already begun to take a good hard look at what they are eating, and after the chicken nuggets episode, nausiating though it was, they are not going to feed the kids any more junk. So maybe Jamie can succeed even if he doesn't get the support he so richly deserves from the government. It's time to stand up and be counted and force the changes through by writing to our local MP's.

I signed this petition too. and I agree, the education of the children has to begin with the parents. How can someone like Jamie Oliver succeed when parents are pushing McDonalds through the gates at school lunch times....it is an appalling lack of respect all round if you ask me,

Jamie's School Dinners
Channel 4, 23 February to 16 March at 9 pm
Rating:



This series was more terrifying than The Exorcist. Jamie Oliver—loudmouth, Essex boy, school failure, and now celebrity chef—sets out to bring healthy school dinners to a whole London borough. His four part info-doc could have been dismissed as a self serving publicity stunt, but nothing prepared viewers for the real life horror they were to endure—lines of children shuffling along waiting for burgers, chicken nuggets, pizza, and chips, all washed down with carbonated syrup.

We are told it's "what they want" and "it's all that they will eat." Jamie, however, has a different view and, seasoning his speech with a tasty collection of well chosen expletives, he lets the schools have it. This is junk and should be in a trough. These foods are mechanical reclaimed meat mashed up with fat, sprinkled with fluorescent bread dust, flavoured with 20 different preservatives and colours, then deep fried for extra goodness. Refined sugar is the omnipresent ingredient.






Jamie's despair is real and powerful. This soon turns to anger when he meets the once mighty dinner ladies, now reduced to little more than food hygiene technicians. They seem fearful of contact with raw ingredients, but they needn't worry—there are none. School dinners were contracted out years ago to the private sector. This now means that 37p is the average cost of each meal. Jamie is lost.

His salvation comes in the guise of a charismatic, Irish dinner lady called Nora who has an even bigger gob than Jamie. These two walking megaphones, fighting back to back, take on the establishment. They "ban the junk," introduce noodles, veg, pasta, bread, and soups. War breaks out with kids boycotting this healthy "junk." We even see a child vomiting up a "healthy" meal—fortunately his head doesn't do a 360 degree turn.

It takes time but they do it. Even the most suspicious of children start eating Jamie's dinners. On this healthy diet the schools anecdotally report better conduct and a reduction in the use of asthma drugs. Jamie asserts a widely held view that the explosion in conduct problems is linked to the consumption of processed foods and lack of exercise.

Jamie and Nora are on a roll and meet Charles Clarke (the then education secretary) to promote better school meals. Jamie is offered a dish of junk platitudes, all deep fried in the oil of political expediency as we later learn that "junk food," obesity, constipation, diabetes, and premature death are to stay on our children's menus.

These programmes are the talk of middle class dinner parties. Hushed voices and furtive looks reflect the shame as even in our suburban wonderland most kids get this same junk food from their parents—"it is just so much easier."

These programmes were a must-see. Jamie Oliver has done more for the public health of our children than a corduroy army of health promotion workers or a £100m Saatchi & Saatchi campaign. Jamie might be more Dagenham than doctor but I know who I want cooking the nation's school dinners.



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http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7492/678?ehom

Jamie is to appear on Parkinson tonight

In the last six months the schools in my area and I am presuming the rest of Scotland (though I can't be sure) brought in a healthy eating menu and removed the reconstituted rubbish menu. At first I think there was a bit of a problem as the kids were getting used to this new healthier menu because there were far more lunch boxes going into school than I had seen before but I have noticed in the last few weeks or so there are less lunch boxes going into school and according to my eldest the dinner hall is getting really busy again as kids start taking to it.
One thing I did wonder though are younger kids more fussy when it comes to healthier food stuff or not? My 5 year old refuses to eat the stuff in school saying that it smells of bins :confused: (even though he gets the same type of food at home) and will only take a packed lunch in, while my 11 year old has said that he prefers it much more to the rubbish they used to get and has ditched his pack lunch in favour of it.

Ps even although my kids recieve this healthier option have signed this petition as think it is extremely important that all kids now and in the future recieve what they are entitled to regardless of the cost to the government.

Jamie was on Parky just now. I haven't been watching the school dinners programme, but will sign his petition as he talks a lot of sense. If the government save money on health care for kids with a poor diet, then they will be able to afford to ensure that every kid gets a wholesome meal at least once a day.
It all sounds way to simple!

Looks like Tony Blair has seen the light as Jamie said on Parky last night he has a meeting with him next week. He's obviously seen how much this has stirred people up and is looking for votes now.

Looks like Tony Blair has seen the light as Jamie said on Parky last night he has a meeting with him next week. He's obviously seen how much this has stirred people up and is looking for votes now.

I watched Parky tonight as well but I'm not convinced his meeting with Tone will make a difference. Charles Clark was up for it all when he was minister so I would assume the PM at least is aware of the changes that were going to be made but then there was a cabinet re-shuffle & Ruth whatshername is in charge of it now - she has said there is no money to make the changes.

Personally I was appalled when I watched the program but I took Em off school dinners the day she came home & told me she had had 1/2 a pizza & 2 fish fingers for dinner cos that was what was left!

I hope Jamie's meeting with the PM does have some effect - the phrase 'we are breeding a generation that will die before their parents' is frightening. Don't get me wrong, I am as guilty as others I know of feeding this reconstituted crap to Emma but not now. Mealtimes can be a bit of a battle but slowly but surely, she is coming round to my way of thinking. The hard part is that her 21 year old brother eats nothing but rubbish but there is little I can do about it - if I don't cook it for him, he cooks it for himself. & before anyone says he wouldn't be able to cook it if I didn't buy it, if I don't buy it, he buys it himself.

I've got to the stage where I have to let him know the info & make the decision for himself.

Arggh, I knew there something I wanted to watch on Saturday - Jamie Oliver on Parky!!

I agree Flip, this whole mess begins with the parents! After all a lot of what those kids ate before Jamie got his grubby mitts on the school kitchens, is exactly what they eat at home! No-one is asking parents to suddenly become gourmet cooks and have 3-course dinners at every meal. You can produce simple, basic meals with lots of veg, herbs, spice WITHOUT the additional, enhanced flavouring that are packed into jars, and ready-meals!

I cannot be bothered with parents who yell "it's all he/she will eat" Utter crap, yeah it is all they will eat if that is all that is put down to them. The Dinner ladies are working their socks off and Jamie Oliver has really piled on the pressure to the Government. This is an election arguement now, and it does look like something is being down, but it why has it taken so long? Parents need to be educated BIG-TIME on healthy eating and it doesn't mean you have spend hours in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove, and neither does it mean you have spend loads of money - has anyone seen how much those ready-meals costs - a lot for very little and absolute zilch nutrition!

Flip sent me a cook-book that was made up of favourite recipes from the kids and parents at Naith's school - what if every school done this, sold the book for a few pounds that way every parent has an essential recipe book filled with good recipes, you can still have your chicken nuggets, burgers etc but just done in a more healthy way PLUS, it will bring a little extra income for each school.

The dinner ladies need to paid more and MP's could ditch their free car-rides to pay for it.

Think of the saving on the NHS if we as a nation could eat healthier. This doesn't just stop at school dinners, it must be progressed to every home and every restuarant. I am sick of going to a family-friendly restaurant, the children's menus are so disappointing, although in some places I have seen some improvements.

Jamie was on Parky just now. I haven't been watching the school dinners programme, but will sign his petition as he talks a lot of sense. If the government save money on health care for kids with a poor diet, then they will be able to afford to ensure that every kid gets a wholesome meal at least once a day.
It all sounds way to simple! He was good on Parky wasnt he? And I thought Michael Parkinson was very positive to the "Good Food at School" cause.
I thought it was disgusting though when Jamie told us that only 37p is spent per child on school dinners and 70p is spent on prisoners in jail. As a gobsmacked Parky said, "so you mean a rapist has twice the amount spent on him for food during his spell in prison???" ...

The timing of all this is spot on at the moment for Jamie, as he stands a real chance of getting somewhere, as the Labour Party really dont want anything to rock the boat with the lead up to the election.