When it comes to making school lunches healthier, there seems to be a lot more talk than action going on for the most part. Everyone seems to agree they need to be more nutritious, but cafeteria trays remain filled with unhealthy fare. A 9-year-old in Scotland, however, got some swift results recently when she took to her blog and totally exposed her school lunch program for it was providing -- food that that seemed to contain more hair than vegetables.
Eww, I know ... which was exactly her point. It only took five posts on her blog, titled Never Seconds, before Martha Payne started attracting international attention for the ratings she was giving to the food served in her cafeteria each day. Her first entry was posted Tuesday, May 8:
The first pic is from last week and the second from today. The pizza in the first pic was alright but I'd have enjoyed more than 1 croquet. I'm a growing kid and I need to concentrate all afternoon and I cant do it on 1 croquette. Do any of you think you could?
Food-o-meter- 6/10
Mouthfuls- forgot to count but not enough!
Courses- main/dessert
Health Rating- 4/10
Price- £2
Pieces of hair- 0!
Subsequent posts follow the same format, and they're quite entertaining to read, especially May 14 when the hair count read: "1 (under the cucumber)".
Over the next couple of weeks, her blog started going viral. She was thrilled when Jamie Oliver sent her a message via Twitter: "Shocking but inspirational blog. Keep going, Big love from Jamie x". With the growing attention, the school acted, and quickly.
Her dad met with the powers that be, and suddenly put into place was a new and glorious policy --- unlimited salad, fruit, and bread. No more squabbling over cucumbers, and the quality of the offerings seemed to go up immediately as well. She posted: "For the first time ever I have seen at lunch cherry tomatoes, radishes, carrot and cucumber shreddings." Victory!
While I don't know that offering kids unlimited bread is necessarily the way to go, it is a great example of how change can be made when there's a strong impetus (like bad press). Way to go Martha, I hope they think about a new policy for hair nets next.
Do you feel like your child's school provides a satisfying and nutritious lunch?
Image via Never Seconds
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Comments 25
What a rad little girl!
our school... not even close. I pack my kids' lunches.
The lunch in my kids school is nutritious, but they complain, like the young blogger, they are not getting enough to be full or able to concentrate for the rest of the day. I now pack their lunch and they are very happy.
After going to have lunch with my kindergartener and being absolutely shocked at the beigeness and completely processed selection of the food, I wrote an email to the superindentent complaining about the quality of the lunch. I got back a long explanation of how they are "trying to do better" and those processed chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, and pizza actually contain "wholesome whole grains". They also informed me that kids won't eat healthy, fresh food and they have to serve chocolate and strawberry milk and Frootloops cereal (candy) bars because kids won't eat if they don't. They somehow think that if the cereal bar has a dusting of wholegrain in it it isn't actually a candy bar.
I think most kids WILL eat fresh, healthy food if it is offered and is appetizing and if they will only eat "kid food" and sugary milk, then that's an epic parenting fail. In the meantime, I am volunteering on the school advisory board and packing my kid's lunch.
we like fruit here