Q. How far has your campaign gone towards reaching your original objectives? Do you feel parents are supporting your campaign or simply putting what their children want in packed lunches instead? Priya Kalia, Middlesex
A. I think it’s getting there in terms of the original objectives. Certainly the subject of school dinners is higher up the political agenda than it was and the Government has been persuaded to make some key changes on food standards and money on the plate. And I think a lot of parents are supporting the campaign because we all love our kids and we all want what’s best for them.
What did worry me was that some parents were taking their kids out of the school-meals system without first checking that their school meals were bad. There are schools all over the UK that have been doing great lunches since before I came along. It’s the majority that weren’t doing great lunches that I was concerned about. I want parents on my side if we’re going to make change happen. But, in a lot of cases, it needs to be a question of educating the parents as much as the kids, otherwise we’ll have a generation growing up eating crisp sandwiches and fizzy drinks every day because the parents haven’t thought about their kids’ nutrition.
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Q. What was the key argument the Government used against your proposals to improve school dinners? Was it financial inadequacy? Saki Baba, London
A. The Government has been very responsive and it has never once said: “Oh, we haven’t got the money.” In that respect, there’s no problem. But it does do funny things such as making announcements about changes in school meals and providing extra millions but, when it filters down to grass-roots level at the councils, the money or the changes or whatever don’t really help much. I went to Lincolnshire for the new programme and the council has enough money to give each school a couple of grand. But most schools in that county have no kitchen so £2,000 isn’t going to help them.
Q. We are a Parent Teacher Association that would like to sell healthier things at school discos. Unfortunately, this is not going down well with the pupils, who expect sugar-filled goods. Do you have ideas for anything that we can purchase in large quantities? Please don’t suggest fruit unless we can keep it for long periods. Julie Battson, Lincolnshire
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A. It’s difficult to say because I don’t know the age group, but in Greenwich I found that paninis and quality burgers with salad worked a treat. You can also try pizzas. And what about smoothies that you can freeze? Nora Sands, the head cook of Kidbrooke School in Greenwich, who appeared in my programme Jamie’s School Dinners, on the also makes a very popular popcorn with a tiny bit of sugar.
Q. Isn’t part of the problem the fact that we do not have the cookery lessons in schools that we had 20 years ago. Many mothers today are only able to produce convenience-food meals, and, as consequently, this is all their children will eat.
Gill Grace, Bucks
A. That’s exactly part of the problem and that’s one of the things I’d like to see compulsory cooking lessons from primary school. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said this week that cookery lessons would be available to every young person who wanted to take them as part of a new package but the lessons would not be compulsory. The Government thinks that after 24 hours of classes and a certificate kids will be able to cook. It simply isn’t good enough.
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Q. Would you like to see home economics/ cookery becoming a compulsory subject within the school curriculum?
Joanne Lake, Stockport
A. Yes, absolutely. I’d love to see kids getting more hands-on food lessons right the way through school from primary. Food can be great fun especially if you get to eat it in the lesson!
Q. Jamie, while it cannot be denied that you have done much to highlight the horrors of the poor nutritional content of many school meals, those of us at the “chalk face” struggle to combat the ongoing resistance from many children and some parents to healthy eating. Having raised public awareness, will you now campaign for the Government to provide an education programme to bring about to change in national attitude?
Paul Jarman, head of Hanover Primary School, North London
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A. Well, I am raising awareness of this at the moment but it needs the parents to buy into it as well. I appreciate that everyone’s busy and often, both parents are working. And I know that most people haven’t got much money and it’s easier to give the kids some old crap that you know they will eat rather than spend £5 on some ingredients and actually cook something nutritious. But if you can just try, once a week, to do a roast chicken or a curry made from scratch, it’s a good start for getting kids interested in food. And very often it’s cheaper to go and get an organic chicken for five people and some veg than it is to get a fast-food family box or whatever. There’s more effort involved but the benefits are enormous.
Q. Why is my brother so healthy when he has never eaten any fruit or veg other than the odd carrot since he was a baby. Do you seriously think school dinners can be healthier than a good packed lunch?
Hannah Winn, Cheshire
A. No idea because I don’t know whether he’s 4 or 44, but I suspect that even if he appears “healthy”, he’s storing up problems for himself in a few years. Remember that kid in School Dinners who was as thin as a rake and just ate chocolate? He was thin but he wasn’t healthy! It entirely depends on the school dinner and the packed lunch but, basically, yes. This is because if you have ten school meals rotated through two weeks with all the nutritional balance of vitamins, minerals, proteins, essential fats, etc, all worked out, it’s going to be a lot better for you than a packed lunch in the overwhelming majority of cases. A parent that only has to worry about getting a good breakfast sorted, with the school covering the main meal of the day, is a lot easier all round
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Q. My children are used to good wholesome home cooking and never liked school dinners. However, when “Jamie’s dinners” were introduced we thought we’d give them a try. At first it was great, they loved the food but, gradually, they began to complain and I noticed they came home ravenous. They told me the food had become horrible again and they begged for packed lunches. The school still claimed to be cooking “Jamie’s dinners” but from my children’s description of the food I thought there must be some mistake. I was paying more than £35 a week for junk food. I’m now back to giving them healthy packed lunches.
Anne Ince-Vize, London
A. This is why part of what I’ve been asking for is money to set up training schools for dinner ladies. Because there is absolutely no point in a school converting to “new” menus if what comes out the other end tastes like rubbish because the poor folk who are cooking it don’t know what they’re doing or because they aren’t given enough time to cook a meal from scratch. Are you able to go and to try a school meal for yourself? Or, better still, why not take your local MP along to try them with you.
Q. We live in West Sussex, where the council shut all the primary school kitchens. Only a few schools in fairly well-off areas managed to keep theirs open. The result is that the children most in need of a hot meal go without one, possibly never having a cooked meal all day. I was a school secretary when this came into force and I was appalled by the contents of the lunchboxes shipped in by the contract caterers. Various county councillors claim to have tried the packed lunches and found them very good. All I can say is that their idea of good is vastly different from most people’s. I wish that you could bring this sort of arrogant decision-making to the attention of more people.
Pauline Devey, Crawley
A. Funny you should mention it but I found exactly the same problem in Lincolnshire when I was filming the new television programme and we found a way to solve it by using local pubs. Have a look at what happened when the programme airs (September 18, 9pm on Channel 4) this month and see if it works for West Sussex. Why don’t you get a group of parents together to see whether you can get some sort of quality-control panel so that you have a voice on your council?
Q. Why is there not a greater choice of vegetarian lunches provided in school?
Lotty Crook, Maidenhead
A. Excellent question. In the menus that I put together in Greenwich last year there was always a vegetarian option, every day. The school has a lot of vegetarians and also some kids who don’t eat pork on faith grounds, so we catered for them, too. I’d go to your school and ask why they can’t provide a suitable option for you and other vegetarians who aren’t happy.
Q. A recent School Food Trust survey of school caterers showed that many were pessimistic about being able to deliver meals to the new nutritional standards within the budget available that children would want to eat. Do you share their apprehension? What do you think can be done about this?
Will Hill, Middlesex
A. I don’t share their apprehension, no. I managed to create the menus in Greenwich on the same amount of money and, if you watch the new programme, Return show on September 18th, you’ll see how we solve the problem of a chef in Lincolnshire going over budget — we hooked him up with a local farmer and cut his food bill by half.
Q. Do you think that healthier versions of popular foods, such as oven chips, have a role to playin making sure that kids stay in school to eat the healthier meals that the DfES/SFT new government standards should deliver?
Ainura Bertram, Middlesex
A. Not really, no. I’m not saying that we should ban chips but, the fact is that all chips - oven chips, fried chips - they’re all contain “empty” calories and there’s still loads of fat. This goes back to the question of how to educate kids and parents about what different foods do to us. In the new programme, we use chips and fizzy drinks to really hit home to parents in Greenwich what is going into their kids. It’s not pretty. I worry when you get statistics like one million obese kids by 2010 and more than 12 million obese adults. That’s shocking.
Q. As a teacher, I applaud the disappearance of cola machines and fast food from our school. However, pupils now bring in their own personal hoard of colas, chemical-laden crisps and snacks, thus undermining our healthy eating policy. The local baker and the corner shops are richer and our school’s finances are hit hard. resources are reduced. Did anyone see this coming?
Juliet Boughton, Esse
A. Actually, we did. In Greenwich, we started a junk amnesty to counter this problem and to get the kids’ money back in the school and not in the high street. We had to offer an “incentive”, which was a token for a free “street” lunch, but it worked. Unfortunately, this takes a budget to enforce but the parents and teachers could work together to ban junk food from schools.
Q. Hi, I’m the editor of a website of for parents, trying to make family life happier. About 25 per cent of our traffic is requests for advice on fussy eating. , this accounts It is not enough just to offer children healthy alternatives; what would you say to parents who have children who refuse point blank to try new foods?
Karen Gardner, Wiltshire (www.parentingcafe.co.uk)
A. We showed in School Dinners the first series that there were a number of ways to get kids to try new things: get them to help with the food preparation; keep trying when they first turn their noses up; bribe them, if you like; and if all else fails, show them what really goes into their chicken nuggets. which we did in the first series. I’m not saying it’s easy because it’s not. But if you start early and get kids interested in food and taste and where food comes from, that’s a start. And try to get them involved in the cooking as this makes a big difference. Sometimes you have to be prepared to stand your ground with kids; after all, you know best.
Q. As many kids, especially city kids, are unaware of, or don’t care about, the provenance of the food they are eating, could you do more to encourage schools to add market gardens and trips to city farms to their extracurricular activities?
Name and address withheld
A. I’d fully support that idea and it should probably form part of an overall movement towards compulsory cooking/food lessons for all. The Government provides free fruit for children up to the age of 7. Then it stops. It seems crazy to start a good habit then stop it. I’ve heard that the scheme may stop altogether.
Q. How can we make sure kids get free fruit right through primary school?
Sally Naish, Warwickshire.
A. As with all these things, lobby your local council. We had 271,000 signatures to the petition we took to Downing Street. We got something done. That was parents, teachers, kids all working together. The local councils are the ones with the money to spend on this stuff. If enough parents kick up a fuss, you can change things.
Q. I use many of your cookery ideas and appreciate you taking the science out of recipes. Your encouragement to explore is refreshing. My question is: do you still have your scooter and what model is it? Colin Holmes, Thailand
A. I sold it on eBay about three years ago to make a bit of money for the Fifteen Foundation charity. It was an Aprilla Habana 125.
Thanks to everyone who sent in questions for Jamie; sadly, we didn’t have the space to include for them all of them. For more information on Jamie’s Return to School Dinners, will be broadcast on which airs on Channel 4, on September 18, 9pm, visit www.channel4.com