"Egomaniac", "loud-mouth" and "hypocrite" are just some of the words Daily Mirror writer Brian Reade has used to describe Jamie Oliver, the UK chef turned kids' health campaigner.

This week however, Brian has eaten his words conceding that Jamie is "one of the few public figures sticking his head above the parapet in a genuine attempt to make a difference."

In fact Brian's new-found admiration focuses on Oliver's attack on the mums who were caught shoving fast food through playground railings in reaction to his campaign to serve low-fat food in schools.

"If they had forced saturated fat on young animals, knowing it was cutting their life-span, they'd be facing charges of animal cruelty," Reade cleverly reports.

But shouldn't parents be able to give their kids what they want?

And as Oliver's 'paymaster' Justin King, the chief executive at Sainsbury's, has said, isn't it the case that "there is no such thing as bad food - just bad diets."?

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Well, it’d be nice to actually know the facts, wouldn’t it?

Before the LEAs ordered the schools to provide only healthy cuisine, parents on low incomes could afford the charges for school dinners.

Afterwards, some on low income (those ranted against by wealthy Jamie) could not afford the new, higher, charges. So, given a choice of hungry children or cheaply fed ones, what would YOU have done?

After pushing a hot convenience meal through a school fence, the other thing I might have done, as a parent, would be to take the matter up with the school and, especially, the LEA which did not fund the dietary requirements they’d placed upon the establishment and, so forced the prices up.

In addition, I might have invited every parent to tell the school "Either you make your meals affordable to everyone, or no child at all will have a school dinner" A boycott or strike, if you will.

It’s all very well a wealthy and media-struck celebrity chef publicly spouting the healthy option, but when bureaucrats and politicians refuse to fund the correct alternative, is his anger really pointed in the right direction?

Stevie.

"Don’t follow me, I’m lost"

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I cannot understand how parents who purport to be unable to afford quality school meals but can afford McDonald's and chip shop fodder (to shove through the railings) which cannot be bought for less that £2-£4 a go on a daily basis.

Anyone want to enlighten me???

I hope when these kids get to 30+ years and are suffering diet related disease remember the part their parents played.

I am not even a Jamie fan but what he says has a lot of truth in it. Kids today have tastebuds attuned to hydrogenated fats, sugars and e numbers.

It is no wonder rates of depression and behaviour problems are on the increase in kids.

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"I cannot understand how parents who purport to be unable to afford quality school meals but can afford McDonald's and chip shop fodder (to shove through the railings) which cannot be bought for less that £2-£4 a go on a daily basis.

Anyone want to enlighten me???"


My pleasure, madam!!!

Shops close to schools offer 'lunchtime deals'.

A local one near me is a bun with chips and a can of coke for £1.50.

School dinners cost £3 per day.

Just do the maths.

And then try the alternative on £80 per week, with 2 children, for 10-15 years.

Stevie.

Don't follow me, I'm poor as well as lost!

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I live in Australia, but I was brought up in the UK, where we were fed soup and fried bread - gross!

I have to say that I think there's a balance to be found. People always seem to flip to the other end of the spectrum ... 30 years ago it was fried bread, now its lean, haute cuisine!

I find that making my child a packed lunch every day is the best of both worlds for me. Its more cost effective and I know what's in it - i.e.

This is much cheaper than school lunches (anyway, we only have tuck shop twice a week - I live in a semi-rural area) and I know its fresh, tasty and healthy. And as he doesn't have heaps of saturated fat in the rest of his diet, I don't avoid butter or full cream yogurt - I think kids need 'real' food. (Anyway, he's as lean as a bean and burns off his calories running around with his little mates).

I'm not bagging Jamie Oliver, and I'm not bagging parents who are feeding their kids through the fence (although, I have found for important issues its been far more effective to have a face to face dialogue with the principal). I've just found myself that this is the cheaper, healthier option, that isn't really that time consuming.

And I'm sure one day, we'll all find that happy balance where healthy eating is tasty and fairly priced.

Aannsha

Last edited: 24-09-2006 12:31:57 AM

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Where I live you can't buy these for less than £3 -£4 a go and I don't live anywhere that is considered expensive.

As for chips and a can of coke for £1.50 anyone who wants to put that kind of muck in their children seriously needs their head examined. Carbonated drinks are proven to be a major cause of bone densiity loss/osteopoerosis not to mention the chemicals and colourants. Chips from a chip shop are full of saturated, artery clogging fats.

As the poster from Australia has said it is easy enough to make some sandwiches, a yougurt, apple, grapes, carrot etc into a packed lunch and not spend any more than the £1.50 spent on a chip roll and can of coke (why not make it a salad roll and a carton of orange juice). I can make a dish of brown rice, tuna, sweetcorn, cucumber, spring onion and radish which costs about £4 to make and will adequitely feed a family of 4.

It's not being sanctimonious, it's about looking at what children are putting in their mouth and the increase in obesity and mental health problems.

The fact is...parents are either lazy or ill-educated when it comes to nutrition.
Children have been brought up to have taste buds attuned to junk which is why they will not (not cannot) eat healthy food.

I can see in 20 years time all these physically and mentally ill kids suing their old school authorities if they weren't providing them with healthy meals in school time but would they sue their parents?

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quote=Joyce]
I can make a dish of brown rice, tuna, sweetcorn, cucumber, spring onion and radish which costs about £4 to make and will adequitely feed a family of 4.

Sure Sir, and...would you like fries with that or even go large!!

Last edited: 1-11-2006 02:17:05 PM

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If anyone's interested, I will happily type in the recipe for the muffins. Just let me know.

Maybe we could start a 'cheap and cheerful' school lunch thread with easy, inexpensive, tasty recipes?

Aannsha

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Do you remember what school dinners were like during the 70s and 80s? that is before the outsourcing of canteens and the introduction of burger bars. Everything came out of tin, canteen staff weren't even allowed to peel a potato and we used to be given milky coffee to drink in infants school! A poem I always liked at the time was:
You go to school dinners, you sit side by side,
you cannot escape though many have tried.
you look at the gravy all lumpy and still
if that don't get you the custard will.

Lets hope that in another 20 years the school children now will look back at the school dinners of the 90s and early 00s with the same disgust and determination that their children will never have to eat that way. That they don't repeat the mistakes of their parents.

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ha! this is a good one! nothing like food to get the old brain juices flowing, it is even better than politics! (hang on….food IS politics….oh well) I think Jamie Oliver is excellent, and just because he is well off, does not mean he should not speak to those less well off! That is like saying ‘being well off is a sin’! I hope none of us believe that! Also, Steve says Jamie rants against low income families, no I don’t think so. He rants against those feeding kids junk. And he did, also, direct his anger at politicians and bureaucrats.
The truth is the truth. Of course, any food is better than going hungry, but I don’t think that is the issue. I think it’s more like what Joyce said: parents are lazy or ill-educated about nutrition. Again, not a sin, not their fault, but there is a degree of responsibility implied in being (a) adult and (b) a parent. No-one in the UK or USA could claim to be totally unaware of the issues, could they? Therefore they have some responsibility to educate themselves. And yes, I know that it depends on our emotional conditioning, or whatever. Naturally, all involved must bear some responsibility – school, LEA etc. and parents too!
By the way, our school dinners are £1.50 (not £3.00) and not bad. not brilliant, but not bad. Compromises can be made, school dinners but not every day, etc. Jamie was pushing parents to commit to every day, because it was a pilot scheme! And by the way again, we are not well off! Anyway we are all evangelists for what we believe in, aren’t we, and that always pisses someone off.
And Aansha, yes lets start a school lunch ideas thread! I already made a start, on the ‘local produce geek’ thread, tho some ideas rather grown up, and you could argue whether or not they are cheap.
Helen Swan RSHom.

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Very interesting discussion- It got me thinking about social conditioning and the idea that healthy food is conceived as being expensive.Its really about education, of course there are issues of poverty and malnutrition but not through lack of food on the whole in the West.
I believe that when there was rationing during and after the war peoples health did not suffer, in fact it could be argued that health improved. Sugar was a rare treat and people could not over eat ( nowadays we eat at every opportunity rather than when hungry) Also many people were encouraged to have allotments and so were eating locally grown food with no pesticides.
I remember my Grandparents making their own wholemeal bread in the 70's ,when you would be seen as a health freak to do that, but the truth is that in days gone by white bread was seen as the thing to aspire to as it was more genteel , and brown bread was for the common man- how things get turned on their heads!
Refined sugar is as addictive as heroin, it has no nutritional value whatsoever and causes havoc in the body- no wonder children find it difficult to change to healthy eating - they have to detox first from all the cravings.
I have had a child in the clinic today for allergy testing and therapy. His parents were desperate to find the answer to his behavioural problems without resorting to psychological treatments.
The shadows under his eyes were to me the first sign of allergy/intolerance. It turned out that aspartame and caffeine were the main culprits ( in the diet coke) and also the 'healthy' flavoured water given at school.
Aspartame is now cheaper than sugar so its put in foods and drinks and then sold to us as being 'healthy'. So coming full circle back to the brain washing we are all subjected to on a daily basis.
Food for thought eh.....?

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I really think that Jamie is doing something very worthwhile and giving a focus to an important issue. Also education is the place to start encouraging awareness of the dangers of unhealthy eating and the benefits of healthy eating.

Does anybody know how Jamie knows what constitutes healthy eating? Does he have a team of advisors backing him up - or is he relying on his own knowledge?

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I take my hat off to Jamie ..he's passionate about food and like most top chefs is crazy about buying the best natural ingrediants which are in season
I'm glad he's used his celebrity to do something worthwhile.
I don't think you need to be trained in nutrition to appreciate healthy food, although we never stop learning new things.Its more a case of experiencing wholesome food as we grow up, but not being fanatical about having the occassional take away or fish & chips.
Its an interesting fact that babies have been known to actually spit out food or cows milk when they are allergic or intolerant ( with the Mother then shoving it back in again then wonder why baby suffers with excema !)
I also think that lifestyle plays a major part here too. We have central heating and drive in cars for much of the week- we don't burn off enough food compared to our intake. My Grandfather had a high saturated fat content in his diet from meat , eggs and butter etc but walked everywhere and spent lots of time outside in the cold- he lived healthily to a ripe old age and could stand on his head even in his 80's!

Last edited: 16-10-2006 06:46:09 PM

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Hi Jayne,

You sort of proved my point (Which is people have different views on what is healthy). I do not regard "meat , eggs and butter " as unhealthy (with some provisos)! From your phrasing, you appear to think they are or that others think they are.

Warm Regards,

Nick

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Hi David and Nick,
thanks for the imput guys.
I've never thought that the butter etc is 'bad' - just that most other people do as we have been brainwashed into the low fat myth for years now.(and still getting fatter!)

There is also a strong emotional element to this too which I think you have metioned David, regarding food as a substitute for whats missing in our lives.

Bye for now, jayne

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....I also think Jamie is doing a great job...sticking his neck out and raising awareness of nutrition.
Jayne....you rightly pointed out the importance of saturated fats in a healthy diet!
....."My Grandfather had a high saturated fat content in his diet from meat , eggs and butter etc but walked everywhere and spent lots of time outside in the cold- he lived healthily to a ripe old age and could stand on his head even in his 80's!"....Exactly!......
It's the trans fats, sugars, carbs and sedentry lifestyles clogging up your blood vessels and a low fat diet will make you ill...as well as fatter!
David.

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Sorry David, I must be having a bad day. What on earth is an emotional healer?
And why is it that so many 'spiritual' people want to disect everything. This 'emotional layer is the second layer' soryy but that is ribbish, IMO, as we are a whole being, you CANNOT and MUST NOT disect us.

Last edited: 1-11-2006 02:20:08 PM

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Again David, you are disecting people. Dealing with someone on an emotional level only, is to disect. We are a whole person, what we do to one part of us we do to the whole. No-one can seperate our emotions from our body, or our thinking process (mental) or our electrical system. These are just human disections. Until we all learn to deal with the WHOLE person at the one time, we will not get to core issues and actually, if you just deal with one part of a person, you can, and probably do, supress their REAL problems. Disection is the bain of wholeistic health people, medical people do it well. INTEGRATION is the key, not splitting things into layers.

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Jon....who....and what ....are you refering to in your last two postings, because I can't make any sense of them!!?
David.

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It's not you David, he was replying to David Coulson who has recently deleted all his posts from the forum, hence the fact that several threads now don't make a lot of sense. Sorry for the confusion.

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