British Expatriate Network

Can't be a bad thing health-wise.

http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4287712.stm

Foods high in fat, salt or sugar are to be banned from vending machines and meals in English schools within a year.

Foods to be banned in British schools

Burgers and sausages from 'meat slurry' and 'mechanically recovered meat'
Sweets including chewing gum, liquorice, mints, fruit pastilles, toffees and marsh mallows
Chocolates and chocolate biscuits
Snacks such as crisps, tortilla chips, salted nuts, onion rings and rice crackers.


Nice to see how we make two words out of "marshmallows" - I'd forgotten we do that. And meat slurry...mmm. Still, I am now craving for a canteen sausage roll - one of those ones where it's so pink it looks like a cartoon color.

Isn't this what Jamie Oliver has been going on about now for a while?

Jamie Oliver is fronting this effort to get junk food out of schools and get back to "healthy" foods.

I applaud the wish, but I think the method is nutty. We know the difficulty many people have, of changing their eating habits, even when they want to. It almost seems that we are addicted to certain amounts and types of food. Here they are going to try the cold turkey approach, applied from the outside, by Big Brother.

I didn't like school meals so I bought things I liked better on the way to school.

Education of the parents and the children is needed and at least as many tv ads countering the undesirable food as the makers use to promote them.

There was a good news item a few months back here in the US where they documented a school who threw out all the junk food.. even from the vending machines. The transformation of the kids was amazing, suddenly, they were awake and alert after lunch time. Test results went up and it was an overall impressive change for the better.

I am still amazed that schools allow MacDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King etc to provide food to school children.. but unfortunately school profit from it and gives them (sometimes) much needed funds).

I think CA is about to ban junk food in schools too.

So the UK government finally caught up with this one.

This actually happened at eh school my boys went to a couple of years back. The vending machines were all switched over to water instead of pop, and "healthy" snack bars rather than sweets. The menu at the school canteen was also overhauled to be more healthy (if we can ever think of school food being healthy!!).

The general result among my boys' friends was that they actually went to the nearest tuck shop for their daily fix of junk food!

When I was a wee nipper, we never had money in our pockets to go anywhere. We used to get something like 2.50 to purchase 5 dinner tickets on a Monday morning. We could not skip it since our names were ticked off. There was no exchange of money during lunchtime.

Taking an empty bottle of pop back to the local corner shop for a 5 or 10 pence refund occasionally was our only chance to buy some sweets.

Mechanically recovered meat, yikes!
As to Ca banning junk food. It's becoming difficult. Ahnold borrowed tons of money from the educational fund and won't pay it back so we need the $s from the junk food providers to pay for school stuff.

When I was a wee nipper, we never had money in our pockets to go anywhere./quote]

Unfortunately, their school worked (as do most UK secondary schools I think) and they had to pay every day, so they had to have money too. :sad:

I usually bought a little hovis loaf with my fivepence. 8)

Can we ban them from British stores too?

/nobody needs toenail goodness for lunch

Oops.. apologies for the previous effort. I'll try again.

Unfortunately, their school worked the cafeteria system (as do most UK secondary schools I think) and they had to pay every day, so they had to have money too.

I think this is fantastic news. We recently watched Jamie Oliver's series. It was amazing how the kids who were most resistant to changing from the crap they were being served, evebtually became the most enthusiastic supporters. And their behaviour and marks got better too.

Apart from anything else, if you are going to have school meals and allow the state to feed your child, there has to be some sort of minimum committment to give them them even basic nutritious food, rather than actually endangering their health and force feeding them junk food. It's a fairly basic responsibility. In the series, you saw how the dinner ladies simply reheat deep fried potato, shaped like smiley faces and various forms of reconstituted meat like turkey twizzlers. There wasn't any vegetable, fruit or grains and it was amazing how many kids said "burger and chips" like a mantra. Adults, even teenagers can make bad food choices, but little kids shouldn't be force-fed fast food crap at school.

At least when I was eating school meals in the 1960s and 70s there was stuff on the plate pretending to be vegetable even if it had been boiled for a month-and-a-half and the some of the potato was actually mashed or boiled and we got a bottle of milk in the morning.

I really think this is revolutionary. It's giving kids a fighting chance to make choices about food. Let's not forget that Britain's heart attack/disease rates are some of the worst in Europe and in Scotland, the very worst.

Nice to see we've finally graduated from the Stone Age!....... :roll:

I think it's a step in the right direction. If we don't supply bad foods to kids - they won't eat them. It's pretty simple, really! Of course - this may just result in kids bringing their schoolbags packed full of unhealthy stuff to compensate for what they can't get at a vending machine/in the lunch hall.

KR

True words have never been said ! Also let's not forget that parents have to play a bigger role in this too, they shouldn't expect the school to responsible for all this, the same goes for home work and learning.

These are the same parents of course, some anyway, that will pull into the next available drive-thru they see for a coffee, burger, and donought, without getting out of the car, to at least walk into the store. :roll: