Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Oh, How I’d Love To See The Phrase…

….’Health experts are failing to understand that no-one cares what they recommend, people have warned’ in the news, just once:
Parents are failing to put enough fruit and veg into their children's packed lunches, health experts have warned.
And what’s ‘enough’? The ‘Five A Day’ concept has already been holed beneath the waterline, so who decides?

Well, you can guess, can’t you?
The School Food Trust, which examined 3,500 packed lunches in England in 2009, says about 40% of lunchboxes do not contain any fruit or vegetables, compared with 10% of school dinners.

It said parents should consider switching to school meals.
Or perhaps just consider not paying the slightest attention to the hectoring of yet another unelected quango or fakecharity

Oh, and then there’s the 'real' charities to get in on the act as well:
Meanwhile, the World Cancer Research Fund has set up a website to give parents advice on healthier lunchboxes.
Brilliant way to spend any donations the public give you under the assumption they are funding cancer cures, eh?
Patricia Mucavele, research and nutrition manager at the School Food Trust, which offers its own advice on packed lunches, said, "School lunches are now the most nutritious choice for children and young people.

"Packed lunches aren't as nutritious as school meals - they are typically higher in saturated fat, sugar and salt, and often contain foods that can't be provided in schools, such as sweets and salted snacks."
‘Foods that can’t be provided in schools’. There’s a telling phrase, eh? As Bucko notes, does this mean the school tuck shop is a thing of the past, then?

6 comments:

Captain Haddock said...

"School lunches are now the most nutritious choice for children and young people" ...

Translates as "School dinners are also a nice little earner for the Council, which can bulk-buy & mass-produce ..

Whilst ..

‘Foods that can’t be provided in schools’

Translates as "Foods that WON'T be provided in schools, because the prod-noses have banned them" ..

Neither of the schools I attended had a "Tuck Shop" .. The same goes for the schools which my children attended .. So its a concept with which I'm unfamiliar ..

Woodsy42 said...

"‘Foods that can’t be provided in schools’."

Which could explain why they are put in lunchboxes. Why do we put up with these idiot self styled do-gooders?

SBC said...

*passes The Chips Of Freedom and Burgers Of Liberty through the railings of Oppression*

You want your teenage kids to eat healthy? Easy..-hide the Clearasil!

Canute's expert advice said...

Experts have warned that experts aren't very expert at all.

History is littered with examples of how experts have got it wrong, from the Victorian times when there was a man who resigned a top job at a patent office because he was convinced 'there was nothing left to discover' (at about the same time that experts predicted that London in 1920 would be knee-deep in horse manure) right up to global scare-mongering -- sorry, climate change -- in the present era.

Ex[perts in fact are so expert that they fail to see confidence tricks, scams and what is right in front of their face.

In fact, the title expert can usually applied to someone who suffers from an excess of wishful thinking.

Lynne said...

I was more concerned that my son would actually eat his lunch so his butty box was packed with food (no, not sweets) I knew he liked. It was either that or he would simply refuse to eat what he clearly didn't want. Which would have been a stupid waste of preparation time, food and money.

But then, this isn't about the kids or their health, it's about petty little bansturbators exercising their muscles.

JuliaM said...

"Translates as "School dinners are also a nice little earner for the Council, which can bulk-buy & mass-produce .."

Good point!

"History is littered with examples of how experts have got it wrong..."

Oh, indeed! And several of the modern bansturbators have been shown recently to have got things wrong, or flat out made things up.

And yet we go on funding them!

"It was either that or he would simply refuse to eat what he clearly didn't want."

Yes, I suspect most of the kids served those school dinners are simply scraping the vegetables to the side as well!