Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
TEACHERS AND HEALTH experts have voiced concern over the kind of food being served to children as part of the hot school meals programme, which the next government intends to expand.
As well as the nutritional content, experts have taken issue with the origin of the ingredients and the waste produced by the scheme, which they say was “thrown together” too quickly.
As of September, almost 2,200 schools were availing of the programme – the equivalent of around 345,000 primary school children.
Each day, suppliers deliver the pre-portioned meals and they’re served at lunchtime to children. Each child or their parent can look at the menu in advance and opt-out of certain days if they wish.
A sample menu for the programme has meals like macaroni and cheese, beef stew and cocktail sausages.
The Department of Social Protection said the nutrition standards were developed by a technical working group led by Health and Wellbeing Programme, in consultation with Safefood and the Healthy Eating and Active Living Programme in the HSE.
It said they follow the Food Safety Authority of Ireland dietary recommendations.
The written guidelines state that processed meat products, fried foods, foods cooked in batter or breadcrumbs or foods containing pastry, “should only be provided once a week maximum, if at all”. This, it says, includes bacon, ham, sausages, and chicken nuggets.
It stipulated that on the day when processed meat is served, schools should aim to provide a healthier alternative.
Processed foods are those that go through any level of processing, such as milk being pasteurised. Ultra-processed food are those that have additives like emulsifiers, colourings or preservatives.
Ruth Hegarty, a food policy consultant, says there is growing evidence that ultra-processed foods are designed to to encourage over-consumption, and their regular consumption has a wide range of negative health impacts.
She believes there’s no need for any school meals to be highly-processed.
This programme is about feeding people, rather than feeding them well.
“These are hot meals that are going into schools every day. So there’s no reason why they would need to have an extended shelf life.
“This is really about producing food cheaply .”
The budget for the programme is to surpass €300 million once it’s expanded.
On the cost, Hegarty says the government must “reimagine” how it uses such a sizeable budget, which currently allows for €3.20 per portion.
“Because of the system that’s been put in place, every meal is going in single-use packaging every single day. So there’s a proportion of that €3.20 that’s going on a disposable container and lid.
“Then the providers are obviously all external to the schools, and some of them are quite far away from the school, so you can imagine the cost that’s involved.”
The Department conducts regular inspections of the programme in schools. Under the existing audit process, 400 schools are inspected annually.
It said that when schools are applying for the programme, they have to send a sample menu, and if it doesn’t meet standards, their application will be denied.
“Adherence to the agreed menu options is also monitored,” a spokesperson for the Department said.
The government should look at how the service could be provided in-house in future, Hegarty says, and a focus should be put on Irish producers rather than importing ingredients such as meat from abroad.
One of the major issues voiced by teachers is that the same size portion is given to every child, from junior infants to sixth class.
Shaun Conaghan is a clinical nutritionist and teacher in St David’s Boys’ School in Artane, Co Dublin. He says the programme “doesn’t seem like it was thought out”, with some children getting innapropriate portions for their age.
“In their school time alone, they’ve already gone way over their calories for the day … They’re on a crash course for high blood pressure, for heart disease, for developing obesity just by what they’re eating in the school.”
Donal O’Shea, the HSE’s Clinical lead for Obesity, said feeding children ultra-processed food is a “slippery slope”.
“Once ultra-processed foods are an option, most people will choose them.
“If they do it a little at the start, they’ll do it increasingly as time goes on.”
He also said that the State should get more bang for its buck, expanding the programme to be an educational experience.
“It’s not doing anything to develop kids’ cooking skills and when they’re investing that kind of money in food, I think you should be developing kids’ basic skills.”
There is a “huge amount of waste” in the programme, according to Conaghan, but principals “don’t want to admit that” for fear of the meals being taken away.
On the FAQ page of the school meals scheme section of the Department’s website, it says the school decides the supplier and the supplier “should make all reasonable efforts to minimise the environmental impact”.
Hegarty said: ”Some teachers who have contacted me are just so appalled at the amount of food waste that that is being generated by this programme.”
The draft Programme for Government says it will improve the programme and ensure that suppliers adhere to “robust guidelines” on the nutritional value of meals, taking into account the dietary requirements of students.
It also states its intention to reduce food waste and make suppliers use recyclable packaging.
Conaghan said that the narrative that the programme is “better than nothing” is “really disrespectful”.
“Especially for children in disadvantaged areas, this is a huge opportunity to get one really good meal into them each day. And what are we doing? We’re providing them the very foods that we know drive up obesity risk and disease risk.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Fair play to the Irish government. They have done a great job steering the ship.
@Sean Minihane: Only since July 2021
@Paul Hedderman: yup, all the planing just magically appeared in July.
@Tony Gordon: Vaccine rollout aside did they really do a good job “steering the ship” in your opinion?
@Paul Hedderman: yes they did, in my opinion. Their 2 biggest missteps was not planning sufficiently for nursing homes at the very beginning, which in fairness every country got wrong. And then reopening in December at the beginning of the Delta outbreak. Aside from that we have done very well, far better than most of Europe.
@Ger: Delaying locking down for the first lockdown when other European States were locking down around us and covid confirmed a few weeks prior. No engagement with highly effected sectors. Lack of communication to public, conflicting information, leaks. Conflicting rules. Not allowing businesses to open sooner when they could operate safely. Only telling us socialising outdoors was safe just before the summer when it suited their agenda. Not preparing schools properly. Not implementing mass rapid testing, to name but a few…….. Re christmas (UK variant) they had to ease restrictions, public would have gone mad and ignored them if they didnt, that wave was inevitable as it started weeks before easing, with new variant, Christmas and 2 months of level 5 prior it was the perfect storm.
@Sean Minihane: RTE will be disgusted. They are still trying to stir it.
It has been a remarkable achievement. Let’s hope it continues.
All the overly dramatic commenters posting ‘open the pubs’ on here every day for the past 18months should have a look at that Bloomberg article and see how much more restrictive the lockdowns were in other European countries.
@Niels: Exactly, imagine your priority in the middle of a pandemic being whether the pubs are open or not , a horribly negative benchmark to use.
@Niels: only 5 European countries on the list higher than us for restrictions, 6 if you include Turkey…… We’re only in the top 10 in that chart of only 53 countries since mid summer. Article is titled “The Best and Worst Places to Be as We Learn to Live With Delta”…. Not “countries have performed the best through the whole pandemic”…. Vaccine rollout was a great success. Handling of the first year and a bit of it was shocking by govt, particularly the start… I’d take that report with a pinch of salt. Our universal healthcare score is 90 somehow and I wonder how much weight GDP growth forecast goes towards the rank. Hard to see how were better than Denmark when they have more vaxd, better healthcare, less restrictions, nearly half the cases and deaths compared to us since delta.
@Paul Hedderman: they also don’t share a border with the UK who have been a disaster throughout the pandemic, that’s a massive point going in their favour
@Paul Hedderman: I don’t understand how we managed to knock Norway off the top spot to tell the truth, As John just pointed out to you, we share a land border with the UK, but Norway shares with Sweden and when you compare those two, the difference is purely due to the difference in the paths taken by the authorities of both countries.
@Paul Hedderman: Sorry, hit wrong key. Anyway, that said, I’ve no issue with our government’ response, and as to various comments of only since the mid summer, it is a report that is done monthly, so depending on how it goes, we may be further down the list again next month.
Great government leadership and commitment from all in the health service. Very proud of our efforts.
I’m happy with it- come at me.
@murt de murty: wont be long now ;)
While not perfect, it certainly could have been better.
But credit where it due, we did a decent job….and still are.
And v little congrats to The minister for health. How the shinners piled on to him
And the public never doubted the government for a second
Proud of the majority of Irish people not succumbing to the nonsense and believing is good science.
@Tony Gordon: Indeed! Long may it last!
Open the pubs properly!
@Wolfgang Hanratty: Try harder
@Wolfgang Hanratty: did you get a thrill saying that?
@Joe_X: open the pubs and reverse the smoking ban.
And free plastic bags while you re at it.
@Anarch Eco: A right rebel, you are!
Enda was right. We’re the best little country in the world to get Covid in.
We won
@Jonathan:
We are winning, unfortunately this is not beat yet…
Let’s just hope Tony got this right and opening will be handled…
Still 1 in 5 from 18 to 49 are not vaccinated… we can do better there, that would massively reduce the risk of another lockdown…
Feck the begrudgers is my favourite old Dublin saying It could have been invented for the comments section of the Journal.ie.
Pity it took a year to implement hotel quarantine
It could have been so much better, especially with fumble after fumble in 2020 and the worst implementation of quarantine ever. We made it across the line eventually though with an excellent vaccination rate. Government can’t take credit for that.
@Paul Cunningham: The vaccines fell out of the sky then did they?
@Paul Cunningham: But they learned as they went from the mistakes, which is the important thing. Remember, for most people, this is a once in a lifetime event. Very few who lived through the Spanish flu pandemic of just over a hundred years ago are alive today. It’s not as if any government knew what to do when it kicked off, and the next time something like it occurs, hopefully, not at least for another hundred years or more, mistakes will be made again for the exact same reason.
‘The next two weeks are vital’ – still it implies an intelligent educated population in this country
Remembering when New Zealand’s Ms Ardern said last year: ‘I was just looking at Ireland, their stepping down is taking them through to July before some people are back in work.”
I disagree when they say that Ireland was the worst in the world at the start of the year.India was actually the worst in the world.
Looks great when you apply the Trump formula for bringing down the numbers. Stop doing tests and the positivity numbers drop. Or someone has an underlying health condition and dies with Covid then they didn’t die of Covid according to Leo the leak. Don’t report the daily deaths and Looks like we’re heading in the right direction.
Bualadh bos! Aren’t we great! All we had to do was throw away everything our ancestors fought for! They’re spinning in their graves now but shur we can hook them up to the grid to make up for the shortfall in power caused by closing Irish power stations and giving away our electricity to data centres. We’re a great little country!
have your say