Chat Ed : Welcome to this evening's webchat with everyone’s favourite chef – Jamie Oliver! He’s here to talk about his Jamie’s School Dinners documentaries and to raise awareness for his Feed Me Better campaign to ban junk food from schools. To sign Jamie’s online petition got to www.feedmebetter.com.
Jamie Oliver : Nice one everyone! We're online and want to take your questions and I hope you're as angry as I am about the state of school dinners. Bung us your questions and I'll do my best to answer them.
jase : jamie, firstly id like to say a big thank you for what you’re trying to achieve
james ketterer : I just wanna say i think you are great and deserve more respect than you have been given
Jamie Oliver : Bless. I really appreciate all your support and the important thing is that we make enough noise now...otherwise we give up and let it be shit for another 20 years.
ness : jamie please do0nt give up, the kids need you to re-educate them and the government on what a massive problem this has become
minx : Hi Jamie...thanks for challenging schools for what kids are being fed...do you have any plans to continue your campaign after the programme is finished?
Jamie Oliver : Absolutely and I think my job in the public eye is to draw attention to things that are important in my world and over the last year and a half I've been disgusted by all the intelligent doctors and scientists that give hard evidence that our kids are now dying sooner than our parents because of what we perceive as a “normal diet” in 2005.
Tracy : yes a big problem
Jamie Oliver : The least the government can do is make sure that school dinners are good and I will continue to push this forward as much as possible with the FMB Campaign (Feed Me Better), which I want you all to sign up to tonight on www.feedmebetter.com and we can then sort these problems out and Ruth Kelly (Head of Education) can make a meaningful difference.
Andy S : how have you managed to bring these meals in for 37p? or has there been some leeway? don't you think that the kids are worth more than that?
Jamie Oliver : I totally think the kids are worth more than that. I think a realistic amount of money on the plate in 2005 is more like 50-75p . However the point of the documentary was to work within Greenwich's current budget, which is 37p. I had to use every single bit of common sense to get it anywhere near on budget and we got there eventually. But the government needs to wake up and get their bloody wallets out.
Julia B : Hi Jamie, love your programme but how do i re-learn to cook the basics, on a budget?
Jamie Oliver : Julia - go to www.feedmebetter.com and have a look around the website; look at some of the key principles that we believe in. Also go to the comments section where other schools give their stories and tips on how they do it. Hopefully, in the next month, we'll be able to send a pack to your school (free of charge) and hopefully post it to you free of charge, (if I can get the Royal Mail to deliver it for free) for you to be able to use in your school. It's got all sorts of recipes from 25-200 portions, advice for head teachers, diaries and games for the kids and even a song for them to sing (that's primary school of course, secondary school kids would laugh in your face if you got them to sing a song).
MiknJen : Surely a case of prevention is better than cure: money spent on kid’s nutrition is saved on the NHS bill!
Jamie Oliver : Mik - congratulations my friend! You are a man of basic commonsense, like myself, so why the bloody hell does the government not see it like that? They are so reactive, not pro-active. Just for your information, school dinners cost the government around £1.4 billion a year while diet-related problems cost £2.4 billion a year. I was also informed the other day at a conference that obesity costs around £7 billion a year and heart disease around £6 billion a year. Even if a raving idiot (which I was at school) does the sums you can see that putting money in NOW is the way forward.
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email - Hannah: I have been watching Jamie’s school dinners and it looks really hard. Was it easier to get the younger kids to eat healthier food than the teens, and why do you think that was the case?
Jamie Oliver : It's definitely easier for the younger kids to adapt to the meals, mainly because they are younger and more open to suggestion and haven't formed their own opinions or attitudes and hormones haven't kicked in yet. However, don't be fooled - the teenagers react well if you don't give them the choice of the junk.
marmacat : They should introduce Twizzler patches like nicotine ones to wean kids off!Would that work?!
Jamie Oliver : Bloody good idea! Please suggest it to the schools and the papers!
nick : Was there a noticeable change in the behaviour of any of the children eating the new diet?
Jamie Oliver : nick - absolutely...one of the biggest problems with food in general is that most of the effects of processed, cheap, crap food, which probably represents 70% of food eaten in this country, mainly has long-term slow and consistent effects on the mind, body and soul.
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email - Hayley: I have got a 4-year-old son, and a 7-month-old baby. I have done the same thing with both my children, cooking all my food for them, freezing etc. However my eldest has become quite fussy, any ideas on how I can try and increase his vegetable intake? I just need a better variety of vegetable ideas.
Jamie Oliver : Smoothies, fruit juices or tomato sauces are a wonderful way of hiding nutritious vegetables. Celery, carrots and beetroots in a smoothie plus every fruit you can imagine – oats and yoghurts too can all be used to make a really, really lovely milkshake-like drink which will give them a wonderful kick-start to the day. Even if your kid is a junk food junkie they will eat this… you can make a big batch of tomato sauce using six or seven veggies – leeks, onions, garlic, squash, courgettes, celery, carrots and then slowing fry them for 20 minutes and simmer them with tinned tomatoes for 30 minutes. Then get a whizzer to whiz them up really smooth. Puree it and kids won’t have a clue it’s got all that veg in it – whether it’s with pasta and meatballs or spaghetti or on pizzas or as a dip for nuggets and stuff like that. There will be a time where you have to hide stuff – it’s not the best thing in the world to do but that’s just kids. And if you have fun with food you can be more honest about it. Best thing to do is get them round the farmer’s market with you to take in some of the atmosphere.
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email - Rachael: Do you feel the effect of your school dinners could ever feasibly be long term?
Jamie Oliver : Well I think it will because as much as I know that the power of TV can be quite profound the priorities of the general English folk and the ability to keep pushing things forward isn’t classically that powerful. However, my dream was always to empower the dinner ladies, parents and teachers to kick the government up the back-side and make them get their wallets out and invest in our kids; to be able to have a fair and honest and safe start to their lives. If you’re asking me “can this show make a difference?” well, I wouldn’t have bothered wasting a year of my life doing it – so hopefully, darlin’, if you keep telling your friends and campaigning for better food and speaking to your education authority and asking to speak to Ruth Kelly and if all your mates do it too then everyone will know we’re not mucking about. This show has touched on a lot of emotions from the public and at the end of the day that’s their job and if they ignore us maybe they’re not the right people to be governing this country. We’ll see in spring when they announce what they’re going to do. P.S. Between you and me, I think they are very aware of what Channel 4 and me are doing and I think they’re taking it extremely seriously.
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email - Keith: What’s your reaction to the news at the weekend that one supplier has banned the “turkey” twisters and that four European catering companies have refused to tender for UK school contracts unless the Government increases the money available for school dinners?
Jamie Oliver : I’ll start at the end of that question – the Europeans, certainly with food culture, tend to have standards which the English governments seems to have ignored for the last 20 years since they gave up the responsibility of nutrition and catering in schools. In programme two I went to visit Scholarest which serves 500 kids a day and without sounding big-headed I’m almost sure they decided to stop using the certain junk food product because the programme and your support has kicked parents and teachers into touch and made them feel they have no choice. On one hand I salute them for showing the private sector of school dinners a positive way to go forward and on the other hand I give them a big v sign because it took a documentary and bleedin’ TV chef to get them to take notice. Where’s the morality of making s**tloads of cash these days with these companies?
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email - Gaye: I give my child £1.70 per day for his school dinner and it costs the school around 40p, I would like to know where does the rest of the money goes?
Jamie Oliver : Well, these are the things you shouldn’t worry about because it goes on electric, gas, dinner ladies and things like that. The things you should be more concerned about are probably that a quarter of it goes on management of some kind. The purest form of school dinner is going to be the independent style dinner service which involves the head teacher employing a capable head cook to buy, cook and sell food and, because of the lack of middle management, get the margins correct, hence giving your child more like 70p on the plate. The second best step is the local council, if, and it’s a big IF, if it’s managed properly. You’ll pay management costs of £1 - £1.70 but their objective is to provide a good service throughout a borough which is obviously a bigger picture and they are allowed to break even. Then thirdly, when competitive tendering came in in the late 80s private companies could come in and they could bid for school contracts and not only have middle management and all the other overheads but most upsettingly, with the same business plan and structure, make profits for shareholders - that, I feel, is a conflict of interests because our kids should be given a nutritional service and should not be marketed or sold to in the school domain. Some private companies try and disclose books showing they are breaking even or showing losses and I certainly know that firstly, companies and organisations never do anything for love and secondly, if you have an investigative accountant you can find that somehow money goes back to a holding company which profits the company that owns them. Quite frankly it’s f**king corrupt. Or can be.
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email - Peter: Could Jamie explain why he uses the f-word so many times during his programme when he must know that any of the children featured in the programme will be watching, although it is after the 9 0'clock watershed. Would he like his children to hear such language? Such language may be acceptable in trendy quarters but most people find it offensive, and television generally over the last year has allowed it to spoil many programmes.
Jamie Oliver : Err, no, I wouldn’t want my kids to hear that language and in the normal environment I wouldn’t use that language in front of kids. However I have spent a year and half frustrated, demoralised, compromised and trying to keep up various jobs as well as dinner ladies afloat and quite frankly I feel that if I’d have put a nun in my position you would have got at least one “f**k!” out of her. You know what? We’re all human. If you want to watch a polished, polite, soppy documentary without the honesty and the rawness that tells the story of school dinners then I suggest you switch over to BBC2 and you can hear the buzz words of “action please!”, as opposed to following a frustrating story of the last 20 years of our kids in England becoming the most unhealthy in Europe, close behind the U.S. Maybe next time I take on a documentary I’ll take you along and see how long you last. However if you ever introduce me to your mother or mother-in-law or the Queen I promise to be nothing but a complete gentleman. God bless ya. P.S. There’s a lovely little polite woman at the start of every programme that says “this documentary is full of swearing from the very beginning”. That means if you are offended by this kind of language then switch over and if you insist on watching – shut up and watch ;)
nursery cook : How did you get Nora to go with you? I work with a cook VERY stuck in her ways-worse than the kids!
i am a chef : jamie where u surprised how little some of the dinner ladies where trained
Jamie Oliver : That's a very hard question to answer. Get her to watch the documentary, get her to go on the website, sign up for the schools pack. All I tried to do was be passionate about change and give Norah some of my time. You'll probably find she's stuck in her ways because she's been left alone for so many years without any consultation and motivation - can you blame the woman? Dinner ladies are some of the most important people in the country; 120,000 dinner ladies look after 5.5 million kids everyday. And if you bear in mind they have been neglected for 20 years, because the government doesn't want to be a nanny state, then it's hardly surprising that she's stuck in her ways. She has no mentor and no inspiration and I can't blame her really. Plus probably no one appreciates her and she has loads of crap turning up at the back door everyday to be re-heated. That's my inspiration for starting this campaign.
Hilary Scott : How long did it take for you to get confidence in the dinner ladies (apart from Nora)
Jamie Oliver : Hilary, in a way it was quite hard because working with Norah is one thing then dividing that by 55 schools in Greenwich is something completely different. The only thing I could do was the training and getting the council behind me to supply them all with recipe packs and send them better ingredients. But as you can imagine it’s hard in the realm of council and government services if there's no money to support them in moving forward on a one-to-one basis. So the sad thing is I had to personally employ five people to help me mastermind Greenwich, including four chefs that helped the schools for two weeks at a time. The council couldn't find the budget to make this happen. The government wasn’t interested in helping me in my role. However, after three months, the schools did find their own ways to go about it, but without the infrastructure and government support the consistency is debatable. If you're asking “did Greenwich work?” the answer is, after a period of time schools do turn and we now have 30 schools taken over in Greenwich, which makes me very proud, but we have another 25 to go. I'm still very lost in the ways that government and councils control their budgets. The government has devolved such a lot of power to the councils and the councils have a melting pot to invest in - some moral, and some not. Some boroughs like Hull and South Gloucestershire have prioritised school dinners and are running with it, so it can be done.
Elaine81 : Earlier I asked it you intended to meet with the Scottish Executive after the SNP had called for them to speak with you to overhaul Scottish schools, will you take up the challenge?
deakster : Do you think this will eventually be widespread over the UK?
judith turrington : jamie i think you are doing a great job keep up the good work
Phill : Hi Jamie, brilliant programme - I wish you'd started with the Welsh Assembly
Jamie Oliver : Certainly, I am interested in meeting with the Scottish execs. Apart from Scotland having a close place in my heart as a country full of amazing ingredients and farmers I have been talking to certain people there already and am very open minded to talking with them some more. However they have their own movement towards Scottish school dinners of which I agree with 85% of what they are doing. That's 85% more impressive than what our government is doing, which is zero. For anyone that doesn't know, Scotland has received £65 million from the EU to be spent on improving school dinners as it was recognised as an area of Europe with bad health. They have been quite clever about their initiative and they are spending it strategically.
fresh_stuff : Jamie these children will owe you lots. But what are you going to do about their parents and their eating habits?
eirian : What about educating the parents, schools should get involved in this so that the children get more healthy meals rather than just the school meal?
Joe : Do we have to work on the parents as well as the children?
Sandi : Is change in schools enough? What about home life - shouldn't parents be educated as well?
Jamie Oliver : I guess in a funny sort of way I've been trying to communicate with the parents through the Naked Chef over the last six or seven years anyway. I suppose the issue is, and this doesn't make the parents any less important to communicate with, but potentially 10.5 million parents around the country in different places at different times as opposed to 5.5 million kids in one place at one time...it’s just more realistic to be able to get to the kids. As you heard on the show today - if you change school dinners so that every choice was a good choice then even if the diet was shit at home a lot of their dietary problems could be avoided. School dinners have never been more important and this is the one place where you can really make an impression on most kids all at the same time.
Penny Walker : Which of the dishes which you served and got kids to eat makes you most proud, and which of the 'good' meals is the most popular?
Jamie Oliver : I suppose the strange thing is that every school is totally different. You can go to one school where all the kids eat stir fries and curries and healthy tortillas and ask for more spice and then half a mile down the road they'll all whinge like babies because they've got too much spice and it's exactly the same recipe. The sad thing is that generally ethnic kids and ethnic dinner ladies generally embrace either the cooking or the eating ten times quicker than what we have learned to call 'white trash'. And you just thought it was on Jerry Springer! This doesn't mean they are bad people - far from it, just that ethnic minorities have a bigger sense of family, culture, have a use for the dinner table in the house and use food as a way of celebrating and communicating and being a family. It sounds very sad but in my experience it's totally true. But, it doesn't mean the harder kids won't get turned around, it just takes a little longer.
Chat Ed : Question submitted by email -Nick: Question: How do the school dinners being served up now, compare to the dinners you had when you were at school?
GemmaSimon : How have standards plummeted?
JustinUK15 : Jamie, how do you see school diners in 20 years time ?
Jamie Oliver : In general now 85% plus is represented by junk food - full of low-quality meat and most disgustingly, a whole cocktail of E numbers, added salts and sugars – i.e. it's not really food, is it?
PAMELA : definitely not healthy food
Jamie Oliver : Even though I have quite pleasant nostalgic memories of school dinners it was local food cooked by local women served in pots on our own little table by kids which were a bit older. Possibly wasn't gastronomic but certainly was nutritious. Towards the end of primary school in the 80s the government gave up their responsibilities for school dinners and stopped the milk and put it up for competitive tendering - so any private company could tender for the work with the aim of making a profit out of feeding our kids a school lunch. In a supermarket, a garage or local high street - I can understand that, but to have a private company whose responsibilities are first and foremost to their shareholders, supplying a catering service to our kids which already has an unrealistic amount of investment and money spent on the plate... how can you expect them to serve the kids anything other than rubbish? Unfortunately our governments have walked into this.
Linda : Just want to say well done and keep up the good work!
Damian_IW : Have you seen super size me ? You should make something similar revolving around current school menu's - how would your health fair if fed school dinners as they are every meal for a month ?
deakster : do you think super size me may give adults a different perspective on the junk food so that they can educate the kids to eat healthier?
Jamie Oliver : Heh... Super Size Me came out about half way through filming this. I guess this IS my version of it. Four one-hours going to 49 countries around the world, hopefully getting people to stop feeding their kids s**t. I'm pretty proud, shame it's such a sad story.
Chaz : Do you think that all schools should teach basic and advanced cookery for the different ages?
Jamie Oliver : No point in advanced cooking in schools. Basic is absolutely where you're at as well as reading writing and speaking a couple of foreign languages and learning about the birds and the bees. It only seems fair, correct and normal to teach them a handful of life skills like how to cook quickly, cheaply, how to do a cracking roast, eat healthily and buy efficiently with lots of fun, which you nearly always get when getting people to cook in large numbers. Unfortunately this has been neglected by the governments and schools over the years - they can 't see how it directly affects their other subjects. It's been totally under-funded and under-loved for far too long. It should be compulsory.
Danny2 : Would you have paid the 100 quid if he'd eaten it?
Jamie Oliver : Yeah!
louise16 : hi, i watched your TV program just before and im 16 years of age, and i think its great what your doing and only wish it could be done at our school
tiffany : should it not be that healthy food is made cheaper than unhealthy food to try to help the situation
jacqui : i agree tiffany tax unhealthy foods!
Jamie Oliver : Generally unhealthy food is cheaper because it's full of things that are not food. If you look at most packets of processed food these days you would only recognise a quarter of the ingredients listed - does that not sounds alarm bells in your head? But your theory is sweet and correct and I translate that as should the government not invest to make healthy food a part of kids schooling life - rich, poor or whatever from the age of four to sixteen to give them a good start in life? Yes they bloody well should. Unfortunately I have had to make this film to show people they should be angry and p***ed off because we're being mislead.
Chat Ed : Ok folks our hour long, exclusive webchat with Jamie is now coming to an end…
richard m : Jamie, I really hope that you can make this whole project a massive success and change so very bad habits
lee : jamie your doing a great job keep it up and don’t let a small minority ruin it thanks
Happy Girl : Love you Jamie - your doing a brilliant job and making us very proud!
esme : Just like to say very very well done keep on truckin!!!!!!!!!!
CarolineW : Thanks Jamie
rosie : Well done Jamie. We are with you on this one.
JustinUK15 : Cya Jamie !
teacherdevon : well done
PatHodge : but YOU are changing things Jamie - we salute you!
falco : well done mate, great tv program
jamie T : Bye Jamie. Good luck and all the best. You are great.
Cheryl : hope this changes school meals across the board - well done Jamie
DebbieW : Thanks Jamie keep up the good work
lil : I recon you’re doing a great job keep up the good work
ros : jamie oliver you are a living legend
Rowley : Good bye
tobyaldridge : well done mate
PAMELA : bye jamie good luck with the fight
Pam : yeh bye jamie, thanks for talkin to us and helping the nation
Pigchops : Nice one. Keep it up mate
Hayley : Weel done and THANK YOU Jamie xx
Gardenmaker : Keep up the good work, my daughter has token note of the rubbish in nuggets!
jiro : good on yer son!
anne z : bye jamie - many thanks
Jamie Oliver : For all you guys that are still online if you really care please can you take two minutes to go to www.feedmebetter.com and sign our petition for Tony Blair that I will take to him in the next few weeks.
charlie : cheers Jamie
sar : Done it already!
Nick Lowe : Petition signed Jamie
French bird : Thank You Jamie! Will join in the campaign! X
Jamie Oliver : There's three or four people signing it every couple of minutes and in a matter of days we've already got 14 or 15,000 signatures. I don't mean to sound petty but YOUR signature really does mean a lot.
typical teen : will do
Jamie Oliver : It ain't just me that's going to make a difference it's going to take you guys too. Big love and thanks for watching and coming in here tonight.
Janie : I am sending the link out to everyone in my email address book now..
horsegirl : I've signed it too!!!!
Carla : Bye Jamie xx
Jamie Oliver : And who knows what might happen in the next three months before the election - they might just have a change of heart and want to look after our kiddies.
Jamie Oliver leaves the room
