Spain´s school dinners need some Oliver magic

Joan Collins CHILDREN who habitually eat school dinners are eating an unbalanced diet. According to research Spain needs its very own Jamie Oliver, the TV chef who has revolutionised schools meals in Britain. According to a study produced by the Consumers and Users Organisation (OCU) among almost a thousand school dinner menus, there are scarcely any vegetables in the first course and a lack of fish and eggs in the second, and on occasions fresh fruit is replaced by tinned fruit in syrup as a pudding. The OCU are demanding that the Administration establish that a minimum amount of different healthy foods should be included in school dinners. Taking into account that the obesity in children in Spain stands at 14 percent, the food they eat at school is basic to their development. Children are at school for around 170 days a year, days which include a meal, and this meal should give them 30 percent of their nutrition during the day. The OCU wanted to test whether the dinners offered in schools were healthy, if they gave all the nutrients necessary for each age group and if they were sufficiently flexible to adapt for students with certain ailments, such as allergies, religious convictions, etc. To find this out, the organisation carried out a study of 934 school dinner menus. The OCU's main conclusion was that it considered the school meals analysed were not a balanced diet and meals were always prepared the same way. The entire study will be published October's edition of the magazine OCU-Salud. In the majority of the menus analysed by the OCU, a first course was served based on carbohydrates (pasta, rice, potatoes) or vegetables. There were no problems with any of these first courses analysed, although they were of the minimum recommended portions. One curious fact was that you could tell the different gastronomy of each region, as each one served certain foods a greater number of times depending on the regional preferences. Another point highlighted by the study was the scarcity of vegetables in this first course. The number of portions of vegetables included in the menus was increased by the fact that vegetables were offered as an accompaniment to the second course. This wasn't the best way to do it, according to the OCU, because many children left them on the plate. The ideal way is to include vegetables in the first course. The Canary Islands is the only region where vegetables are the most frequent first course.