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It has been demonstrated previously that once something, be it natural remedies, organic food etc, the supermarkets, chemists, etc jump on the bandwagon and start selling what they claim is the same as those who pioneered it sell, but scientific experiments show is not. Then The Media start looking at it and raise what they see as the difficulties and finally the drug companies oppose it.

This morning my local radio looked at Natural Remedies. I turned the radio on just as it was finishing. What I caught was that the drug companies opposed it because there was no money to be made from natural remedies because they couldn’t be patented. And James Wong said much the same thing in his series on BBC 2 entitled Grow Your Own Drugs. He said he was an ethno botanist and that the remedies he was telling us about had not been scientifically tested and improvement if and when it occurred may be a placebo effect. More on this in a later post.

An earlier broadcast on my local radio mentioned the campaign, headed by Jamie Oliver, to improve the food offered in our schools. They said that children frequently rejected it and the answer was to give them what they wanted.

The Soil Association in an article “School food revolution” in their latest edition of Living Earth, admit there is a problem, but offer a different solution. They article mentions David Madison, the headteacher at St Peter’s Primary School in Nottingham. This, they say was the old school of Jeanetter Orrey, who was “the dinner lady who inspired the original campaign.” David Madison says:

“What we learnt is that to be truly effective, our school meals service needed to extend itself into food education. In this way we not only feed children well now, but try to ensure that they develop the understanding to make informed and healthy choices throughout their lives.”

The campaign has been given the title Food for Life Partnership (FFLP) and they also quoted what Prince Charles said when he presented the awards for good culture:

“The over reliance on packaged, processed food is not just damagin our own health, but damaging our bio-diversity, our soil through agro-chemicals and our water-table through pesticides.” He also said: “How else can we possibly expect children to care about the food they eat unless they understand how it is grown? If they don’t know that milk comes from a cow and carrots from the soil, how can they make judgments on what is good or bad for them.? It is about rescuing today’s over-industrialised children: about instilling in them a life-long appreciation of food and the way it is produced; and reconnecting them with Nature so that they may have a better understanding of why it is so precious to the health and wellbeing of each and every one of us.”

The article also says: “To tackle these challenges, the Soil Association formed a partnership with three other charities to kick-start the transformation of England’s food culture – from the roots up. And it’s not just about school meals anymore.” Jeanette Orrey said: “It’s about practical food education like learning to cook, growing food and visiting farms.” They say that the schools working with FFLP showed that the children will stop turning it down altogether, or eat only eat it at school, but will make it a lifestyle choice. They say that the take up has increased by 16% since joining FFLP.

Above the fact that Prince Charles presented the awards was mentioned and they tell us that St Peter’s Primary School in Shropshire was awarded the title: “School of the Year” in 2008. The reason for this was because they involed “parents and members of the local community in its project.” In a feature about them we are told:

“A complete transformation has taken place.” Before they had “no growing area, limited cooking opportunities and no farm links.” These are thress of the things they have to achieve to reach Bronze Level, other is: “ensuring 75% of the dishes are freshly prepared.” St Peter’s reached the Silver Level. Parents are involved and have been creating and looking after a school garden. “The local greengrocer and butcher work closely with the school, local senior citizens are invited to join the children for lunch now and then.” They have had ‘farmers markets’ and their “cooking resources have been made available for cooking lessons with parents and members of the community.”

They have also reached out to other schools, who have in turn joined the Partnership.

To reach the Gold standard a school has to “serve at least 750% freshly prepared, 50% local and 30% organic food, teach every pupil to cook and grow food for themselves, and involve them in the life of a local farm.”

There are problems with funding there are not enough children eating school meals and it is only when there is that “caterers can afford to invest in better quality ingredients.” Their solution is to call for the government top up what parents pay by 50P.

In summing up under “Food for Life Partnership at a glance” they say:

“500 schools and caterers signed up to achieving bronze mark or higher in FFLP’s first 6 months.”

“No schools have yet been awarded gold, as this defines a truly gold standard for a school’s food culture, and

requires huge changes for the school and the caterers. Like so much that is worthwhile, this takes time to
achieve.”

“180 diverse flagship schools and communities across England are being fast tracked to gold with extra hands-on support from the Food for Life Partnership.”

“The ambition is to have 3,600 schools enrolled with the Food for Life Partnership and be committed to achieving a bronze mark or higher through the award scheme.”

“150,000 people will have benefitted from the work in schools and communities, helping them to understand where food comes from and take care of the food they eat.”