Stephen Jardine: School lunches could do better…

If you care about food, this has been a deeply depressing week in Scotland. It’s taken years to shake off our deep-fried image and at last it seemed like we were getting somewhere. A nine-year-old girl from Lochgilphead has made us think again.

Martha Payne’s blog, recording her school meals, has become an internet sensation. The site is filled with images of miserable and meagre food but one in particular left me reeling.

On the lunch tray is a shrivelled burger, two potato croquettes, three slices of cucumber and a plastic wrapped ice lolly. It looks like an in-flight meal for prisoners being transported on Iranian Airways.

Alongside, Martha explains how she finds it hard to study in the afternoon because school lunch leaves her hungry. In Scotland in 2012 that is totally unacceptable. Jamie Oliver’s crusade was supposed to transform school meals but it seems that in some parts of Scotland, change simply hasn’t happened.

Argyll and Bute Council provide Martha’s school lunch but instead of being ashamed of their pathetic offering they actually seem to be proud of what they do.

“Our school meal provision is fully compliant with nationally agreed nutritional standards” was their response to criticisim. Reading between the lines that means: “Well done us, there is not much fat.”

Looking at the meals, there’s not much of anything. If three slices of cucumber are an acceptable portion of vegetables, they must be using the national nutritional standards for somewhere else, not Scotland.

I’d like to issue a direct challenge to Argyll and Bute chief executive Sally Loudon. If she really thinks these meals are acceptable, let her and her staff eat them for a week. If she’s not prepared to do that, she should overhaul the school meals provision immediately.

Otherwise education secretary Mike Russell needs to get involved.

As a local, Mr Russell knows Argyll and Bute has a fantastic natural larder with great local producers and suppliers but instead it’s food reputation now rests on rubbish school meals.

Hopefully this will turn out to be an isolated incident. I know the Rothesay Joint Campus has a great range of activities based around local food and brilliant school meals. But there does seem to be an issue around food in the Scottish education system.

Last week I reported how my son’s school felt McDonald’s was a suitable lunch stop on a school trip. Other parents contacted me with similar complaints from around the country.

It’s time for a Scottish schools policy on food. Lazy reliance on nutritional standards is not enough. Instead we need comprehensive guidelines that deliver food that looks good, tastes good and does them good. Martha Payne uncovered a scandal. Let’s learn a lesson and change things for the better.