With all the sunshine this week I didn’t have most of a chance to catch up on the major news stories. Of course you’d have had to spent the entire week with your head in jug of Pimm’s to have missed the Katie Hopkin’s saga, the IPSA recommendations on MP’s pay, and the Republic of Ireland’s (most welcome in my opinion) relaxation in abortion laws, but I did miss the furore over school lunch boxes.
It seems restauranteurs Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent have produced a report to urge Government to make school dinners free for all, and ban school lunch boxes. In a move that is apt to make Jamie Oliver squeal with delight, parents UK-wide got the hump about yet another case of government meddling. Aside from the obvious question mark over the true nutritional value of our schools offerings, parents are also left once again having to defend their decisions to an increasingly out-of-touch and government.
In all seriousness, my memories of lunch boxes in the 80′s are hardly fond ones. Sandwiches wrapped in clingfilm and caged in Tupperware for 4 hours = sweaty cheese and borderline fresh chicken. I’d usually throw these in the bin before I got home from school in an attempt to evade a barrage of question from my well-meaning mummy. Satsumas and bananas went down well from what I can remember, but yoghurt lost its appeal when served luke-warm. Even Penguin bars and Club’s (that were used as currency in the playground in the winter) were messy and overrated in the summer.
The only thing that truly withstood any climate, length of time incarcerated in plastic, and over zealous swinging on the way to school were crisps and Mini Cheddars. But even these were subject to primary school scrutiny. If you were lucky enough to find Walker’s, Monster Munch or Pringles in your box it was thought that your parents could one day afford to take you to Disneyland, Salt n Shake, Wotsits or Frazzles meant to you stood a chance of getting on a plane come summer (perhaps for a camping holiday in France), and any supermarket own brand meant it was Butlin’s at Bognor for you. Of course these are sweeping generalisations but here are the primitive observations of the class divide as seen from the under-ten’s.
Add to this the lucky kids whose parents allowed them to drink Diet Coke outside of a restaurant setting, and the rest of us drinking Orange Squash from old Evian bottles, and it’s little wonder that school dinners were considered the Holy Grail. There wasn’t the serious debates about portion sizes and quality there are now. Burgers and chips were always on the menu and you had the option to decline vegetables. With ice cream and Angel Delight for afters, I’d often try to deliberately leave my lunch box at home so I could take an IOU slip to the food hall at lunch-time.
But things have changed. With brands falling over themselves to get into our trolleys and into our kids Ben 10 lunch box - there are a whole host of healthy and interesting things for parents to choose from. With the advent of the internet there’s also more advice than ever, and even competition among parents to make their childs mini picnic as creative as possible. From fruit skewers, to smiley-faced homemade pizza, to spicy wholegrain wraps - some parents deserve medals for their services to the humble school lunch box.
So why is the beloved lunch box under threat? Well apparently some of our schools have spotted William getting a bit too excited after a can of Red Bull and a mini packet of Haribo. William has then caused chaos and destruction during a routine spelling test and Ms Gorman has no doubt it’s because of mums lazy and uninspired lunch box. It doesn’t matter that Jennifer is sat quietly eating her carrot batons and homemade humus, or that Johnny is trying a passion fruit for the first time as mum spotted them on offer at Tesco’s. William’s mum has single-handedly ruined school lunch boxes for the rest of us. Yep according to our schools they’re all crammed with sugar and fat and cause our children to limp through to the end-of-school bell.
What’s my verdict? I might think Jamie Oliver is a massive prat, but I do think he’s done wonders for school dinners. Give it another five years and I’m sure that new legislation, greater budgets, and academy training for our dinner ladies will have led to the greatest school dinners we’ll have ever seen in this country. But I’m not convinced we’re there yet. In truth, it should be a matter of choice. Of course, there’ll be a few unfortunate children whose parents rely on a diet of saturated fat and nasties, but it’s not for our schools to intervene.
Stripping away lunch boxes for parents who prepare them thoughtfully and conscientiously is not only a massive over-reaction, it’s insulting. It would be far cheaper to send a simple guidance letter to all parents of primary school children, and ban carbonated soft drinks from primary schools. Schools could also ensure regular fruit tasting in class-times (think making pictures out of fruit pieces, making smoothies, or tasting fruits from around the world) to get kids excited about healthy choices and hopefully begging mum to pop some blueberries in their lunch boxes.
What concerns me most is that our school dinners are generally hot meals choices. As parents cannot see what portion sizes are like they’re likely to give children another main meal at dinner-time. That’s 2 hot main meals per day, hopefully lots of meat and veg, but not so much fruit. I’d much rather have some control of what my child eats.
So butt out Cameron. Go and sort out the deficit and crumbling NHS and leave out lunch boxes alone.
