WHEN you live in a country that tops almost every European league for poor diet, criticising any effort to improve children's eating habits may seem contrary. But the decision to provide free school meals for all five to seven-year-olds in Scotland sums up everything that is wrong with the way politicians approach entrenched social problems.
Embarrassed by the nation's spiralling obesity statistics? Humiliated by its deep-fried Mars Bar reputation? Then throw money at a quick-fix publicity stunt. Don't stop to think whether the cash will benefit the families who need it most or simply su
bsidise those whose children eat well anyway. Just market it as a policy that has revolutionised health elsewhere and sit back and take the plaudits.
Except, on this occasion, the SNP hasn't actually thrown any money at anything. No, in a week when it emerged that a third of our pupils are still being taught in crumbling buildings, the Scottish Government decided the free school meals should be funded out of existing council budgets. So when your children are forced to work in sweltering heat because their windows don't open, or under a drip from a leaking ceiling, just remember all the pupils in the infants' department are getting free lunches (although whether or not they're eating them is another question).
Despite swathes of literature sent home to persuade parents of the virtues of school dinners, I remain unconvinced of their quality (my son, who took them last year, seemed to consume a large number of hot dogs and pizzas). But even giving them the benefit of the doubt, what's the point of cultivating healthy eating in the under-eights and then abandoning them just as they're getting a taste for it? Besides, isn't there something faintly patrician about dispensing free food in an attempt to raise nutritional standards? It's a bit like taking tankers of water to an African village, instead of equipping it with a well.
A far more creative approach would be for the Scottish Government to teach its citizens to be self-sufficient, an outcome that is unlikely to be achieved by its current bent for handing out recipes to pupils. There is little benefit in knowing how to make shepherd's pie if you're going home to a house without any pots and pans.
If it really wants to make a difference, the SNP needs to shift its focus from the children to their parents. Because unless children live in an environment where fresh food is the norm, they are unlikely ever to cook it themselves.
This is where Jamie Oliver's latest TV series – The Ministry Of Food – in which he tries to get the people of Rotherham cooking – has got it spot on. I know the Naked Chef can be a insufferable, but he – alone among TV cooks – seems to want to share his passion for food with the country's poorest people as well as those affluent enough to buy his books.
In his time in Rotherham, he has discovered the scale of the UK's problems: that there are people out there whose relationship with fresh ingredients and the lexicon of cooking is so tenuous they are unable to follow the simplest of recipes; people who do not know that water bubbles when it's boiling, or the meaning of the word "simmer". He has also understood that if the situation is to change it needs to be tackled on a community level: hence his passion for 'Pass It On' – a pyramid-style initiative, in which every person who is taught to cook a new dish pledges to teach it to two other people in turn.
I think by following Oliver's lead, the SNP could achieve so much more. Why not provide cookery lessons for parents after hours in school home economic departments? There could be a range of classes catering for everyone, from those who couldn't pick out a leek in a vegetable line-up to those who are merely in search of fresh ideas. The unifying feature would be an emphasis on simplicity – one-pot dishes which could be prepared quickly and cheaply. Perhaps supermarkets could be encouraged to operate voucher schemes with those who buy fresh ingredients at their stores rewarded with vouchers for kitchen utensils.
The SNP should also be trying to counter the impression created by the trend for gastro-porn that cooking has to involve exotic-sounding ingredients such as cavalo nero and is therefore the preserve of the middle classes. Oliver has taken his inspiration from wartime campaigns to get the most out of your ration book and there's no reason the Scottish Government couldn't do the same, with public information films aimed at showing people how to make their weekly shop go further. In particular, it should rehabilitate cheap and cheerful foods that have been pushed out by culinary elitism. It should remind mothers that carrots are as good for their children as butternut squash – and that frozen vegetables contain as many nutrients as fresh ones.
It should also take into account the reality of people's lives: accept that those who live on isolated estates are unable to shop every day, and help them to plan accordingly. It might help them to know, for example, that baked beans on toast is a healthy enough option for days on which the fridge is empty, or how to rustle up a meal from an onion, frozen peas, a can of condensed soup, a tin of tuna and rice. If cooking could be transformed from a lifestyle statement into a means of filling hungry bellies as cheaply and healthily as possible, then maybe ordinary people wouldn't be so intimidated by it.
If they could feed themselves, then only the very poorest would need free meals, and the bulk of the education budget could be spent on, well, education.
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The full article contains 1033 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
