Over the last few years school meals have been a hot press topic with many, including, famously, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, campaigning for better quality, healthier meals for our children. Organic school meals as such have not been the driver of this movement, but, perhaps now that the situation is starting to improve in some schools at least, the idea of organic school meals is also catching on.
One of the issues surrounding better school meals has been budget constraints, but many schools are discovering that they can source food themselves at a reasonable price including those schools providing organic school meals. And if the food is enticing, more children will be happy to buy it and the figures start to look even better. The government is now encouraging organic school meals and many schools are already going down this route.
So what are the advantages of providing organic school meals? Well, better food for our children, organic or otherwise, can only be a good thing in terms of their health and wellbeing, and organic school meals offer even more nutritional value. It is widely agreed that organic produce contains more vitamins and minerals than intensively farmed food. In addition, organic produce can often be sourced locally by the school resulting in economic benefit to the local community and cutting down on food miles.
The Soil Association supports the idea of providing organic school meals and their Food For Life; Healthy, Local Organic School Meals, includes actions for getting organic food into your local school. Visit their website Soil Association to order or download the publication.
Visit the following pages for more information on organic products:
