A while back, Jamie Oliver made everyone painfully aware of the toe-curling state of UK school lunches, and the Goverment responded to the nation’s united gag reflex by promising to raise the spend  on ingredients per lunch to a dizzy 52p, or 68p for secondary school kids. That’s a whopping 80 cents (or so). It has now come to light that many education authorities have YET TO MEET THIS TARGET. So, all those children, (and they are legion) who have chips for lunch, (with a side dish of rendered turkey meat - that’s the stuff that splats on the abbatior wall during butchering, that is squeegeed off and made into children’s ”fun bites”) - will continue to be provided with such swill in the name of economy. It’s a bit like the NHS providing second-hand sticking plasters.

What’s this all about then? No one really thinks that a healthy meal can be made for 50p (or less)  - providing quality meat or fish with vegetables, pasta, fruit and dairy. How do you feed a 14 year old boy for 68p? Well you can’t. And with the soaring cost of ingredients, it can only get worse, although only marginally, (a bit less turkey-scraping for your money).

When children are in school, the school has a duty to behave in loco parentis. It’s true that many parents fail to do that themselves, and feed their children more of the same when they get home, but the school has to be the arena for change because it has a captive audience. If the children are kept in school at lunchtime and school lunches are mandatory for all, then the scene is set for them to eat what there is. At least they’re getting one decent meal that way, and can’t do lunchbox oneupmanship or mock those on free meals.

My two elder children are fed every day by CAMST, the national kitchens which provide for schools, hospitals and so on. Now it’s difficult to compare UK spend with Italy spend because the logistical set ups are so very different, but suffice to say I spend 5.3 euros on lunch for a primary school child. That’s about 4 pounds. In the UK , the spend to put the meal on the table is about 1.60p. What does 5.3euros get? Well, just taking today as an example, they had pasta with baby clams, sauteed spinach, mozzarella and ham, yogurt, a plum , bread and water. All knocked up in a centralised kitchen, packed into insulated boxes, and whizzed to the school in a little van by a nice lady in a white cap. No, it’s not cheap, yes, I could do a packed lunch for a lot less, but why should I expect it to be cheap, (a sourced, cooked, delivered quality meal for 4 quid!), and aren’t my children being taught proper food lessons here, that plums and spinach aren’t adults’ food or wierd food or yuk food…that food is a democratic, social entity and at lunch time we all sit at the table together and eat the same, and we don’t pick bits out and we don’t put ketchup on it and it’s recognisable as something that once grew. 

Yes, this is a country where mothers have an attack of the vapours if little Luigi hasn’t eaten for two hours (Italian bambini are getting fatter too, but for a different mix of reasons than their northern European counterparts), but the fundamental difference between the UK and Italy is that the UK processes food and Italy simply cooks it. I bet 99% of Italian kids wouldn’t know a Turkey Twizzler if it was choking them, and 99% of British kids think food comes from the freezer or microwave. What children eat matters here - it should matter in the UK. 

It’s funny, in the UK they’re zealously strapped into their car-seats eating monosodium glutamate and in Italy they’re riding on the car roof eating tomato salad.