I have one very vivid memory of school meals at primary school – Australian crunch and mint custard. It wouldn’t get close to the nutritional standards that we expect of our school meals nowadays - they were packed with sugar and I’m pretty sure the luminous green custard had never been near anything that actually resembled mint. It’s a great example of how, on International School Meals Day (ISMD), what we serve has changed over time.
And now, on the other side of school meals, as a parent, I weigh up all sorts of decisions about what my kids should eat during the day. What do they like? What’s most convenient for us? What’s the cost going to be? What’s the healthiest option?
The one thing that binds these two experiences together is just how little say I had or have in what actually ends up on the plate – over 30 years ago, you got what you were given (especially if your table got called up last). Today, there’s greater choice (for us, weekly via an online ordering platform) but the voice of parents and pupils in the design of those choices is often still missing.
