EDUC French Schools managed healthy, locally cooked lunches that include occasional treats

[Melodi]

I thought this article was interesting because it shows how school lunches can be nicely presented, full of good health food and have occasional treats that teach about the place of such things, which is occasional. Heck I'm a very picky eater and I don't usually like French food but most of the pictures in this article look pretty good. Even if it is edited to look better than it really is, the idea of real meat, real vegetables, real salads made on the day and fresh fruit with a side of good bread and the occasional ice cream or pastry; also occasional fried fish or potatoes is a much more balance idea. Also note that time is given for kids to eat, they are encouraged to eat slowly and enjoy good food and conversation.

I suspect if a school could switch to such a system in US, including a full lunch hour (supervised, especially at first) they would save thousands in wasted food and dealing with behavior problems and more actual learning would happen then by forcing kids to bolt it down in a hurry to "get back to class." Maybe something like this will even start to happen in wealthier districts as they drop out of the overbearing and wasteful current Federal Guildlines - note that a nutritionist reviews the French school menu every few weeks and still allows for some special comfort foods and that even the healthy foods look edible.

As far as I can tell, and based only on this one Australian article, the French government may have at least partly done what the US government supposedly is trying to do, only they combine Fresh ingredients with common sense as opposed to processed cheap stuff (including requiring things be processed so the calories are on the label) and the fantasies of P.h.d.'s in childhood nutrition thinking they know what kids will eat.

Melodi

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fo...hy-eating-habits/story-fneuz8zj-1227046226100
News.com.au

Why French kids don’t get fat



French school lunches show how to teach kids healthy eating habits

13 hours ago September 03, 2014 12:04PM

A typical Monday lunch might be a cucumber and tomato salad, veal marinated with mushroom


A typical Monday lunch might be a cucumber and tomato salad, veal marinated with mushrooms and broccoli, cheese and an apple tart. Picture: Carine Duflos Source: Supplied

WE’VE heard that French women aren’t fat — now it’s clear their healthy eating habits start in childhood.

The country’s primary schools are setting students on the right path with a diet of nutritious, varied and freshly prepared food.

Rebeca Plantier, an American mother living in Annecy in south-eastern France, began researching the phenomenon after noticing the difference in her children’s public school meals after moving from USA.

Tuesday is cabbage and tomato salad, roast beef, potatoes, baked tomatoes with herbs, cheese and a kiwi fruit. Picture: Carine Duflos Source: Supplied

Lunches in France consisted of three small, balanced courses, along with plain water so as not to ruin children’s appetites.

Meals typically begin with a salad, move on to the main and side dish, then cheese, and finally dessert.

“By instilling our children with good habits early on — French kids start school aged three — we can avoid a lifetime of weight issues, and everything that follows in adulthood when there is bad nutrition and excess weight,” she told news.com.au.

Her theory is borne out in the fact that obesity rates in France are among the lowest in the OECD, with just under 40 per cent of the population being overweight or obese, while in Australia it’s 60 per cent.

Unlike with the often processed, pre-prepared meals sold in Australian schools, food is as fresh as possible, usually cooked on-site in a school kitchen.

There’s no school on Wednesday, but lunch on Thursday is a tabouleh starter made with bulgur, then sausages and zucchini, ice cream and an apple. Picture: Carine Duflos Source: Supplied

Menus are varied, and checked every two months by a dietitian to make sure they are balanced and nutritious.

The dietitian might take out a small chocolate eclair and replace it with a kiwi fruit for dessert if there’s too much sugar that week, or modify the amount of carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, or protein to keep the balance right.

Ms Plantier points to a wide range of fruit and vegetables at her children’s school, usually sourced locally and often organic.

Interestingly, treats are included — the occasional slice of tart, a dollop of ice cream or a delicacy from the local pastry shop — but enjoyed in moderation.

Friday is potato and pickle salad, breaded fish and cauliflower, cheese and a peach. Picture: Carine Duflos Source: Supplied

“I had my four-year-old come home one day and ask me to start making beet salads because she loves eating them at the cantine (school cafeteria),” she says.

“The French government have put nutrition, eating and exercise on high priority where children are concerned, and it shows.”

Ms Plantier, co-founder of website Fit to Inspire, has now written a guide to the healthy habits of the French, Lessons from France: Eating, Fitness, Family which she hopes will highlight issues with school cafeteria food, childhood obesity, nutrition for children, and sugar dependence.

She claims that when you make health and wellbeing a priority at school, positive things follow: happy children, lack of weight issues, higher energy, better attention spans in class, little to no food allergies and fewer absences.

Food is freshly prepared on-site. Picture: Carine Duflos Source: Supplied

“How you eat is as important as what you eat,” she says. “Sitting down to eat at a table that has been properly set, eating slowly, focusing on the food and its taste is key in enjoying food and letting it fuel your body properly.”

She says this sort of environment keeps children energetic after lunch instead of feeling drained and losing interest in their work.

“Children, no matter what their age, can learn to eat nutritious food and like it,” she says. “If you serve it to them often enough, they acquire a taste for it.

A chef seasons potatoes. Picture: Carine Duflos Source: Supplied

Story by

EMMA REYNOLDS
news.com.au


News Limited Copyright © 2014. All times on this site are AEDT (GMT +11).

 

[summerthyme]

The big problem is, this is the NORMAL way they eat at home. So, for most students, this IS "good food".

You serve most of that in the US, with the little darlings palates accustomed to Big Macs, Dr Pepper and Pizza Pockets, and they're going to dump 90% of it in the trash.

Our kids were accustomed to eating "made from scratch" meals at home, 3 meals a day when they weren't in school. They detested the school lunches... but they were in the minority.

You can't solve these problems with any level of government.

Summerthyme

 

[Housecarl]

Heck Melodi, looking at the photos of those school lunches makes me want to get the "adult plate"! Yum!

 

[Flippper]

Summerthyme is right. Parents here do the quick and easy food program, junk food from the market that kids can grab and go without bothering mama, who is probably working one or two jobs. The biggest problem is our poisoned food system, GMO, estrogenic soy (fattens people via estrogen hormones), fluoride (kills thyroid hormone uptake), which are ubiquitous in the US. To prepare a truly healthy meal is a challenge at home, it would be a nightmare at a school where things must be purchased in bulk.

If food looks and tastes good, kids will eat it. Our little school had the best hot lunches I ate anywhere, and it was rare to see anyone dump food. AND we only had one fat kid who was unfortunate enough to be hypothyroid.

 

[drafter]

I still remember my school lunches from the 70s. Hotdogs, Hamburgers, pizza, Mac and Cheese, Spaghetti, etc. and not an "obese" kid in sight. Of course we had the ONE or TWO "pudgy" kids, but that was still the exception and not the norm. This trend of forcing kids to eat "healthy" food is having zero effect because "food" isn't the problem as much as the fact that kids, like Americans in general, are lazy as hell these days! Until we as a generation can put down the damn iphone, xbox controller, ipad, etc., there is absolutely no way this problem is going to get fixed.

I will concede that "food" in the 70s wasn't the chemical concoction of preservatives it is today, so there may be some effects from that also.

 

[Melodi]

The big problem is, this is the NORMAL way they eat at home. So, for most students, this IS "good food".

You serve most of that in the US, with the little darlings palates accustomed to Big Macs, Dr Pepper and Pizza Pockets, and they're going to dump 90% of it in the trash.

Our kids were accustomed to eating "made from scratch" meals at home, 3 meals a day when they weren't in school. They detested the school lunches... but they were in the minority.

You can't solve these problems with any level of government.

Summerthyme

I agree, but the point is that if the US Government wanted to have a hope of getting kids to switch to something more healthy, they would look at programs like this one (and trust me I don't believe for a moment that ever French school does it this well or that everything in France is perfect either) and use it as a basic pattern to follow. The major points being good, fresh food cooked in a local kitchen (on school grounds if possible) using real recipes and real unprocessed ingredients. Taking good nutrition as a base line, but including in that some common sense and allowances for special treats/occasion eating and making food that basically does taste good.

In the US this might start with much healthier (but edible) versions of foods kids already eat, just as they are doing in France; there is nothing wrong with a real beef burger on a nice whole wheat bun (note even the bread was being made in the school kitchen in France) with potatoes "fried" in the oven with olive oil, some fresh tomatoes beside the burger, maybe a side of fresh peas or a real salad and a low-sugar fruit cup. Or a real pizza made with real cheese, vegetables, a meat or vegetarian option; salad, real garlic bread and perhaps a banana or pear; ditto real meatloaf, peas, mashed potatoes and a special cup of Ice cream on Friday (vegetarian loaf alternative). You limit salt, you limit sugar, you limit white flour but you don't try and totally ban it all at once the way the US program does or force the placing of over-boiled vegetables (frozen or from a can) cooked without salt (and so taste like library paste) or nasty hard fruit on children's plates when they simply refuse to eat it. Instead you look at ways to cook fresh vegetables and fruit to make them appealing (lots of kids will eat a soup that won't touch a pea).

Heck this isn't rocket science, the best complement I ever had on my cooking was from an eight year old saying to her little friend that I was also looking after for the day "No really, Melodi takes the most horrible things like whole wheat flour and hard raisins and makes really yummy foods!"

And yep, no matter what, at first a lot of the stuff will end up in the bin because kids raised on fast food and Pot Noodles are used to heavy whacks of flavor provided by the processed food companies but the answer isn't no-salt, horrible tasting versions of the same processed junk it is a gradual introduction to real food - even if that means sometimes you have to serve a few more real beef burgers than you would really like to at first, along with a real desert on Fridays.

 

[Melodi]

I still remember my school lunches from the 70s. Hotdogs, Hamburgers, pizza, Mac and Cheese, Spaghetti, etc. and not an "obese" kid in sight. Of course we had the ONE or TWO "pudgy" kids, but that was still the exception and not the norm. This trend of forcing kids to eat "healthy" food is having zero effect because "food" isn't the problem as much as the fact that kids, like Americans in general, are lazy as hell these days! Until we as a generation can put down the damn iphone, xbox controller, ipad, etc., there is absolutely no way this problem is going to get fixed.

I will concede that "food" in the 70s wasn't the chemical concoction of preservatives it is today, so there may be some effects from that also.

I think your last line says it all - I remember high school food in the 1970's and college food from the same era with the same results - the pizza was made in the high school kitchen, the hot-dogs in my college were often warped in enchiladas with real cheese and beans, served with beans, rice and choices of other veggies. The Mac and Cheese was made from macaroni and cheese, the spaghetti sauce from left over hamburger (often served the next day etc).

Heck I worked in one of the last "fast-food" diners for a man in his 90's about 1979; we still made everything, including the onion rings and the fried ice cream from scratch (ice cream itself was bought) no one pretended the stuff was health food, but the chili was made with real dried beans and leftover meat; the onion rings and mushrooms used real leftover bread crumbs; the milk shakes were made with real ice cream and syrup (or fruit); the cakes were made in house every morning and the burgers and hotdogs were real meat.

To this day I occasionally still make some of these things for my family, especially the onion rings and real-deep fried potatoes from scratch - today, even places that "bake" their own cakes usually use mixes with a million chemicals in them and few hotdogs are "all beef" and certainly the hamburgers are not. I haven't tried the fried ice cream in awhile, but I know how to bread it and make it - oh and we did that with the cheese sticks too.

The next place I worked we still made nachoes from real cheese (and deep fried our own corn tortillas), the meats were smoked in real smoker and all the sauces were made from scratch. You do get this occasionally these days in higher end (or family owned places) but it no longer typical of fast-food cooking.

 

[poppy]

That chef in the picture looks a bit hefty to me. Maybe too much sampling her own cooking? Yep, school lunches back in the 60's here were all made from scratch. My grandkids are in school now and everything comes in prepared and frozen. Their cooking is all done by heating prepared food in the oven.

 

[Melodi]

Yep she's hefty and it simply isn't true there are no fat people in France, of course there are; the difference is there are a lot fewer of them (the way it used to be in the US and was in Ireland when we moved here but not so much now) and most of them were middle aged or older (like the lady in the photo). A lot of cultures, especially Southern European ones (France is border line) accept the fact that adults tend to get more "comfortable looking" as they get older, not everyone but many people do; but they also don't accept that children, teenagers and young adults should be overweight in mass; often direly so. The lifestyle which combines exercise as well as eating good fresh food, helps with this a lot; until recently people in Ireland (in the rural areas) walked nearly everywhere, the diet wasn't all that great even the home cooked version but people stayed active into old age. Now when we moved here as one doctor said "we don't have to worry about men over 60 because most are dead," was also true but that was as much because of the high levels of tobacco and alcohol use as anything; that has gone way down and a lot more men are seeing their 80th birthday.

The really shocking thing to me when I visit the US these days is not seeing some overweight people, I've always been plump and my father managed to be "super-sized" even as a child during the Great Depression (genetics is a curious thing) but that so many children and younger people are so very, very heavy and look bloated and pasty. That's very different from having a few fat kids in a class of 50 or even the classic fate of some young wives (especially in the deep South) to balloon up on home-cooking after the second or third child; it wasn't nearly as widespread as what I'm seeing and since we only go back every few years it is more apparent.

 

[Melodi]

Here we go..


http://eagnews.org/looks-more-like-...-york-schools-drop-michelle-os-lunch-program/
New York schools drop Michelle O’s lunch program
September 3, 2014
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Victor Skinner Victor Skinner

Victor is a communications specialist for EAG and joined in 2009. Previously, he was a newspaper journalist.
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BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y. – Another two bite the dust.

michelle-obama-the-side-eyeCentral New York’s Fayetteville-Manlius and Baldwinsville school districts are the latest to ditch the National School Lunch Program, which was revamped in 2010 under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama in an effort to fight childhood obesity.

Strict limits on calories, fat, sugar, carbohydrates, sodium and other aspects of the school lunch imposed by the federal government on schools participating in the free and reduced lunch program has not only increased cafeteria costs, they’ve resulted in a drastic drop in the number of participating students.

At Fayetteville-Manlius, Baldwinsville, and thousands of other districts the new regulations resulted in a sharp downturn in students who eat school lunch and a sharp increase in food waste. The lost sales are threatening the viability of cafeteria programs in schools across the country, prompting many to do without federal subsidies to serve students food they’ll actually buy and eat.

“Grilled cheese and tomato soup was a very popular lunch,” Baldwinsville Superintendent David Hamilton told WRVO public media. “We couldn’t offer that under the new guidelines of the federal government. Spaghetti and meatballs, we couldn’t offer that either.”

As a result of last year’s school lunch menu high school lunch sales in Baldwinsville plummeted from about 600 to 430 students per day.

“We all want a lower carb diet. But it’s hard to sell a sub on something that looks more like a piece of paper than a sub roll,” Hamilton said. “I understand the shift but now the students aren’t opting to eat any of that. They’re stepping away entirely.”

Fayetteville-Manlius schools are experiencing the same phenomenon, and took a survey of students before deciding to trash the federal lunch regulations. The survey’s common theme: portion sizes are too small and the food just doesn’t taste that great, WRVO reports.

That district’s new cafeteria plan “will look more like a food court, with more grab and go items along with a deli bar and a hot meal item,” according to the news site.

The School Nutrition Association conducted a survey at the group’s annual conference recently that showed roughly 25 percent of school lunch programs have lost money for more than six months because of the federally inspired bland school food options, the Detroit News reports.

“The association says that according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, student lunch participation is down in 49 states under the new standards, with more than 1 million fewer students choosing school lunch each day,” according to the News.

A recent Government Accountability Institute report estimates the total amount of wasted school lunches has also reached about $1 billion per year, according to Fox.

In Michigan’s Oakland County, for example, 4,700 fewer students are eating school lunches than when the federal regulations went into effect in 2012.

“The challenge has been in maintaining student participation along with managing the rising costs associated with the new regs,” Oakland schools’ child nutrition consultant Lori Adkins told the News.

“School food service programs are required to be self-supporting and are not subsidized by a school district’s general fund. Therefore, it’s vital for program revenues to meet or exceed expenses annually for a program to remain fiscally sustainable,” she said.

Warren Consolidated Schools Superintendent Robert Livernois said he believes the federal regulations are creating a two-tier school lunch scenario in which poor kids are forced to eat school lunch, while others are bringing food from home.

Free and reduced lunches in the district are on the rise, while paying students are fleeing the program, he said.

“The students are clearly voting with their pocket book,” Livernois told the News. “What I see down the road, as these regulations become stiffer, is our paying customers continuing to vote with their wallet and going elsewhere for their meals.”

“I see the program morphing into a free and reduced meal program,” he said.

A new round of federal school snack regulations that took effect July 1 also seem to be making the revenue problems worse. All school snacks must now meet U.S. Department of Agriculture standards, which means many popular vending machine items and school bake sale goods are now off the table.

In Bloomfield, New York schools, “Snapple flavored iced teas were wildly popular, and the single Snapple machine made $10,000 annually,” but officials were forced to remove the machine to comply with the new snack rules.

“When you lose a cash cow, that is not very good,” Todd Fowler, food service director at Bloomfield and Canandaigua schools, told the Henrietta Post.

More than 75 percent of districts in New York are now losing money because of the federal lunch and snack regulations, he said.

They’re also cutting into school fundraisers that schools rely on for student field trips and other activates, according to Tammy Brace, a secretary for Naples Central School and active member of the Naples School Association.

The federal lunch regulations now also apply to bake sales held during school hours, which used to raise between $200 and $300 per sale, she told the Post.

“We will do our best to raise money in other ways,” such as sales after school and during evening events, Brace said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are considering legislation to provide exemptions from the lunch regulations for schools that are losing substantial revenue, though Michelle Obama has vowed to fight for her pet project “until the bitter end.”

President Obama has also promised to veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk, the Associated Press reports.

 

[TerryK]

The French take their food seriously.
We flew Air France on a trip to Paris and the food was 5 times better than the junk you get on American carriers.
The French even have laws saying how bread will be made and what cannot be put in it.
Oh, and real butter croissants made with 100% real butter and not the junk most stores in the US sell.
Hell, even a Big Mac at MickeyD's on the Champs-Elysees tastes twice as good as the American versions

Their school lunch menus look great

 

[Housecarl]

The French take their food seriously.
We flew Air France on a trip to Paris and the food was 5 times better than the junk you get on American carriers.
The French even have laws saying how bread will be made and what cannot be put in it.
Oh, and real butter croissants made with 100% real butter and not the junk most stores in the US sell.
Hell, even a Big Mac at MickeyD's on the Champs-Elysees tastes twice as good as the American versions

Their school lunch menus look great

A coworker flew first class on JAL back from Asia a few weeks ago...the food included can only be described as "decadent" in comparison to "standard" French food, whereas US common fair wouldn't be considered fit to feed French pigs.

 

[batterbiscuts]

Fat Chefs

If im eating food from a "Chef", I want them to be at least pudgy if not rotund. that is their degree because I know they know food.

Paula Deen aint skinny, she makes good food.

Hell Yan aint skinny, he makes good food.

 

[Richard]

French food is streets ahead of anything the anglos can produce or will ever produce whether you like it of not, same probably applies to any European country

junk food was invented by Americans, incompetently prepared food was invented by the Brits, this has always been so as one french person said to me food is not important to you, I know few Brits who can prepare anything but the most basic dishes even though they may think they can, restaurants in the UK are an absolute joke only preparing food to the standards that the staff do so at home with a few exceptions if you're prepared to pay a fortune
same applies to the Welsh, Scots and probably Irish, it doesn't matter how good the basic products are, people in the the British Isles will NEVER produce good meals never ever
there are tons of celebrity chefs TV programs but that will make no difference whatsoever, food in the UK will always be sub standard, trouble is the population do not know that the food they prepare is so and they NEVER will.

 

[packyderms_wife]

The big problem is, this is the NORMAL way they eat at home. So, for most students, this IS "good food".

You serve most of that in the US, with the little darlings palates accustomed to Big Macs, Dr Pepper and Pizza Pockets, and they're going to dump 90% of it in the trash.

Our kids were accustomed to eating "made from scratch" meals at home, 3 meals a day when they weren't in school. They detested the school lunches... but they were in the minority.

You can't solve these problems with any level of government.

Summerthyme

This^^^ This was also on the news last night reported by good ole Charlie Rose no less (CBS). Unless kids get veggies starting as young toddlers they will grow into veggie despising adults. Ditto this on anything outside of their scope of norm, ie what mom and dad feed them on a daily basis.

As a child attending catholic school I would have eaten many things in the OP's photos, BUT and this is a big but, we were eating those things at home, heck my parents were raising most of it in the garden or the chicken coop or the rabbit hutch. Actually I was suprised there wasn't a bit of rabbit on one of those plates as the french LOVE rabbit, and horse meat for that matter, maybe the horse meat was in the sausage.

If you want a kid to eat a healthy meal then it starts at home with their parents, BOTH parents eating real fruits, real veggies, real meat, etc.

 

[packyderms_wife]

Summerthyme is right. Parents here do the quick and easy food program, junk food from the market that kids can grab and go without bothering mama, who is probably working one or two jobs. The biggest problem is our poisoned food system, GMO, estrogenic soy (fattens people via estrogen hormones), fluoride (kills thyroid hormone uptake), which are ubiquitous in the US. To prepare a truly healthy meal is a challenge at home, it would be a nightmare at a school where things must be purchased in bulk.

I'm not following you here, you mean it's a challenge because of the current state of ""normal"" food found in the grocery market, or that cooking healthy foods is a challenge period?

 

[GunGirl]

Never trust a skinny chef.

 

[Melodi]

Sorry, I was suggesting that even though cafeteria food in the 1970's was not the best - it was full of menus of corn dogs and such; it also had a lot less chemical and GMO junk in it back then, even the processed stuff than it does now. Also, a lot of schools still had real kitchens so even some of the comfort food was made in house, I remember actually like the pizza (it was about the only thing I would eat in the menu along with hotdogs, otherwise I brought my own lunch) and it was made in the kitchen there.

As for veggies, while I grew up hating them, I never realized it was my wonderful but not-really-into-cooking Mother's way of opening a can of peas/carrots/corn etc etc that made me think I hated them. By the time she grew a wonderful garden when I was about ten I wouldn't touch them, which makes me very sad in retrospect, but she still tended just to boil everything to death. I did like a few things, but as a 17 year old dumped in college in Mississippi I started getting invited home with other kids for the weekend in the Fall and it would be harvest time. I discovered the wonderful world of fresh vegetables first by eating them fried in corn meal, then cooked with bacon and eventually learning that fresh vegetables often taste good steamed or lightly stir fried on their own. This may be one reason why I keep saying they have to compromise to introduce children to these foods a few steps at a time, better to get them started by eating baked and breaded zucchini bites made fresh and served with home-made pasta sauce dip which they will eat than just throw a pile of steamed and unsalted zucchini on their plate for them to throw in the trash.

That's what I did with the kids I was caring for, that remark about "horrible stuff turned into good stuff," and I'd start with using a bit of extra honey or sugar because I knew I was in competition even in the early 1980's with taste buds used to over-sweetened dry cereal and pop tarts. Over time, you can lower that down as kids get used to actually tasting their food, provided it is food worth eating in the first place (and taste good for what it is, not using vegetables so old they taste sour or handing out fruit that is grade D and hard as a rock).

My own case proves you can learn to like REAL vegetables and trust me I'm a picky eater, my Mom was totally aghast when I came home sometime in my earlier 30's and bought some fresh tomatoes and she said "but you hate tomatoes!" And I said, "not for the last ten years or so, I just had to experience real ones."

I do have a problem in Ireland most of the year because most of the vegetables are flown in and have that "off" taste by the time they hit the shelves, especially the ones I really like; but now I at least know about herbs and other ways to improve flavor (such as salting and rinsing eggplant).

Anyway, looking at the lovely children of the "little girl" that made that comment all those years ago, I'd say she probably feeds them in a similar way; at least I hope she does...

 

[Richard]

Melodi what do you think of UK food either prepared in homes or in restaurants compared to that produced in the USA similarly, I am prepared to say that US food is streets better of anything we produce here and that European food is streets better than anything produced in the USA though I have never visited the US and will probably never do so.

 

[Melodi]

Well it depends on what you are comparing it too - food in UK fast food places is much worse than in the US primarily because it is neither cheap nor fast; which are the two things you can usually say about fast-food. There are some exceptions, often Pizza Hut is just as good or better in the UK but not always and it tends to be pretty uneven in Ireland. The "Services" food on Motorways is horrific, although it has improved somewhat over the last few years and there are local pockets (usually in Wales and Scotland) where locals run at least one cafe and the food can be acceptable. Truck stop food in the US is usually pretty good as it is in Germany, or at least it was last time I was in one in either place. The UK "version" of Denny's is also pretty horrible (Master Chef) pub food in the UK used to be pretty good and I really looked forward to it before all the "chains" took over and now they try to serve very strange versions of what they think "quality food is."

On the other hand some of the best street food and local cooking I've ever had has been in the UK in special pockets; awesome Cornish Pasties in Cornwall; Devon fudge in Devon; tea and home-made scones with clotted cream near Avery (on a pub that was on the trail between the monuments); amazing steak pie and chips in Scotland and good in-house made Cumberland sausages. Now some of this may be changing, I took my Mom to my favorite pub in London two years ago and the in-house sausages were no longer nearly as good and the chips were no longer being made there (you could tell).

People's homes vary a lot but my friends are not a good sample because most of them are like me and they cook; maybe not every evening but when we have bangers and mash the sausage is from the butcher and the mash is made from real potatoes (but the mushy peas are probably from a can). I suspect most UK families probably don't eat this way but eat like my widower friend who lives totally on frozen stuff from Tesco; these days when I go to stay with him for events in London I go to the super-market first and I do the cooking.

As for the US, of course there are places that have very good food, but most of them are privately owned; I had some great food both Mexican and of the homemade pancake/sausage variety both in Paradise and in Berkeley this past Winter; however I have to say that the run of the mill food from both the grocery store and your average food outlet do not taste very good, at least not to me. They may be less prone to shoddy cooking (something I see more in the UK and Ireland) but they are full of chemical tastes, tons of high fructose corn syrup (which does not taste right to me, even for a treat), the meat tastes "wrong" (it is full of hormones, water and GMO corn feed), and everything is made with GMO corn from white bread to pasta sauce.

Because nothing is labeled except voluntarily in places like health food shops, it is very hard to avoid this stuff unless you eat totally organic or hit some of the wonderful farmer's markets that they do have in California and in much of the US (of course sometimes the food really isn't from the farmer but that was true 20 years ago it is buyer beware).

Yes, there are some wonderful, sometimes strange and very tasty things in the US like deep fried onion rings dipped in batter or corn dogs when done correctly at the county fair. Some Rib and Steak houses still do really good food and of course a portion of fast food tastes good; I still like KFC in the US but don't like it much in the UK. But we went to Arbys and the sauce no longer tasted right and the meat seemed different (again I suspect High Fructose Corn Syrup in place of sugar) and I ordered a "regular size" which was the size of a large dinner plate.

Best places to get good street food in the US really are places like State Fairs or Ethnic neighborhoods, even when I still lived there that is where we did most of our eating out was in Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Italian places run by local families.

Chain food to me these days in the US really isn't worth it, it is better than the UK to a degree but more because it has more variety than anything else; I'm not sure the quality is all that much higher and since it is riddled with GMO's and the UK isn't yet; that makes me really not that happy with it.

Food I have had in Europe, especially German outdoes anything I've had in either the UK or Ireland and is better (and cheaper) that most comparisons in the US; though some of the quirks of German dining like eating when you are served your plate and it may be 20 minutes before the next percent gets served is a bit strange but local customs and all. Sweden used to have great food in the home but eating out was mostly a choice of Ikea, hotdogs, take-out fried meat balls, or rather expensive places that served either ethnic (like Chinese) or traditional Swedish cooking. Food was so expensive when we lived there 20 years ago we often did the take-out hotdog, and occasionally ate Chinese or Pizza Hut. Home made food was very good if you like Dill (which I don't) and Fish (which I don't) but there was a lot of good meat, eggs, breads and cheeses in the grocery stores; not so much vegetables except in season. We could get a lot of game meats at the local supermarket and it also had a bakery where they made really good bread several times a day. Whole grains and potatoes were popular as were sausages and sauces.

Now Denmark two years ago I practically ate my way across the city, talk about wonderful and excellent food on all levels from the expensive hotel stuff to the street hotdogs and ice cream. Pastries made with butter (by law), some of the best in-house pizza I've had in years, portions brimming off the plates and almost no one was fat. I did a post on that at the time, the only fat people I saw were a couple of older people with mobility issues; but then people rode bikes and walked nearly everywhere; but they also sure enjoyed good cooking! I didn't eat in a Danish home but I'd love to go back someday and find out!

 

[Richard]

I think you agree with me but with greater details and experience, yes there are exceptions, the bottom line is that Brits are clueless about food in general, they may have very top quality ingredients but cannot prepare good meals, and I have given up arguing the point with most people

I have NEVER had a good meal in a Brit restaurant ever, average but never good, similarly UK Indian and Chinese food is not much good either, possibly the US outlets are consistent, but personally I can't eat pizzas, KFC and Mcdonalds anyway, there is no such thing as a British haut cuisine restaurant

I agree about the food I have eaten on what we call the "continent" e.g. the few times I have been to Paris we have had superb food, personally I don't know how to deal with the food problem we have in the UK since nobody realises that it is a problem

 

[Melodi]

I have a comment from an old UK cookbook that came with our house that has no date but was probably published sometime around 1920 and it says (more or less) "In England it still sometimes possible to find old fashioned food cooked superbly and in the old style but usually you only find it these days in the old rural Inns or private establishments."

I have done some research on this and it seems that British food was not half-bad until the 19th century when it became unpatriotic to eat anything French and many of the sauces and French cooking methods (and things like garlic) got dumped. The UK still had the "roasts" made over spits in front of large fires which taste awesome (nothing tastes like real spit roasted meat, nothing) marinated and basted for hours; however as the poor had greater income food also became more processed and city people had especially bad diets. Still good cooking still existed for the upper classes, though it gradually did began to go down hill over time. I have excellent British cookbooks from before World War II which is when the final nail in the coffin of British food seems to have happened; it wasn't just the war but the rationing that continued for 10 years after the war. When it was finally over, processed foods were "new" thing and highly popular; electric stoves became standard in most houses changing the way food tastes - you can cook a roast for three hours in a wood stove, fire place spit or turf oven and have it flavorful and lovely; do the same in an electric stove (or even modern gas) and you get dry, nasty meats.

That's a short version obviously it is more complicated, in Ireland there was some limited very good cooking even in peasant cottages but again that changed drastically with the electric stove - people are conservative with recipes so if Mom said to cook the goose for three hours, you cook it for three hours. Which is wonderful wrapped in flour pastry, with liquid and vegetables added and then cooked in a cast iron pot on a "spider" or legged pot with turf also on the top (ask me how I know) and nastily burned and dry set in an electric stove for the same time period.

My friend Jenny assures me there are still a few good traditional places in the UK, she actually tried to take me to one once but we couldn't get a reservation for the entire week; I gather the menu had things like spit roasted beef, real yorkshire pudding made from scratch, grilled fish, properly roasted turkeys and potatoes with proper apple pies and steamed puddings for afterwards. It is however, out of my normal price range, my friend Jenny is not only a re-enactor but a highly paid IT person who can afford such places on occasion.

But, except for very limited situations, I don't think you find this food in the UK unless someone cooks it at home (and I have friends that do) but even they are only going to do the spit roast on very special occasions.

 

[Richard]

yes there are a few places where you can get superb food in the UK of course, but as a whole my argument still stands, this is a result of years of not enjoying British food and I am as much guilty as anyone else since I cannot prepare good quality food myself, some people in households I am certain can produce very good food depending on the individual, however tradition in my own family lends me to the belief that most people are unable to do so, yes there will always be a few places where good food is produced.
What I have noticed is that when a new restaurant chain is announced, e.g Jamie Oliver, for a while the outlets may produce good food, then after a while it lapses into the the mediocrity of the general population, because the people they employ are not professionals. Catering does not attract people who can prepare food but unskilled labour, that is probably the main difference between France and the UK. There is more emphasis on hygiene, e.g your local NHS hospital has 5 stars in hygiene but the food is beyond abysmal.

The bottom line is that most of not all Brits do not know that the food they eat is crap, they think it is good, beyond insulting people I have given up even talking about the subject since most people are sensitive about the subject or more accurately haven't got a clue about the preparation of food. I can't see any solution to the problem since it is cultural.

 

[CTFIREBATTCHIEF]

When I was a kid, school lunches, especially in the high school were pretty damned good in my opinion. Everything was cooked onsite, each school had a kitchen and used it. the food was basic (always pizza on friday which WASN'T that good unfortunately) and little was tossed out.

 

[Melodi]

Richard, I do agree that most UK food is bad; my husband would also agree with you and he went to Cambridge and spent a year in St. Andrews; I also think that in some ways the food was better 20 years ago when I lived there in some places than it is now; but then I'm very attached to food so I could find just the right privately owned Gyros place in Cambridge (it may still be there, was the last time I was there three years ago) but in general such food is really sub par (and sometimes scary when investigated).

I have noticed the attempts to improve the school lunches in the UK met with mixed results and starting out with some funding for real food and ending up with the current new "free" lunch program and some schools giving kids a dry sandwich because the kitchens were shut down and other schools given up on the "healthy" options because they can't afford them and the food wastage. I said the same thing at the time that Jamie was trying to replace burgers with lentil soup that the changes were too drastic, too fast and that kids in general were not likely to eat them; and they didn't. However, it did look to me that at least at first, some of the attempts at change did a better job than what is happening in the US right now. I think the "new" UK program is too early to call, but it looks to me like it will be rather uneven at least for awhile.

 

[Richard]

OK for while my mother was confined to an old peoples home at great expense to the taxpayer, she is now home, there at the home the quality of food was beyond abysmal even though they charged god knows what in the weekly rental

the NHS similarly serves up food which is worse than anyone could reasonably expect, I was forced to stay in an NHS hospital for a week and the food was totally unhealthy but normal to them

whatever happens UK food will NEVER improve either in the public or private sector

the abysmal quality of food in the UK is entirely a UK problem, it is unrelated to comparison with the US, we as a nation cannot prepare food no matter how good the source ingredients may be, I have often wondered about the reason why, even in my own mind, I am just as guilty as anybody and I can't understand why, it is cultural, or maybe that is just an excuse to hide incompetence, or maybe it's not incompetence but not caring a fig about food quality for god knows what reason

 

[closet squirrel]

My daughter just started high school and after a volleyball game I went to get a water from a vending machine at the school. I spent a few minutes actually looking at all the stuff in the machines. Apparently the new rules limit calories on drinks and snacks. So the solution is to have diet soda, low calorie gatoraid and very small bottles of real fruit juice because they have to be under the calorie limit. The food is the same - there were some good snacks; nuts, baked chips, small bags of pretzels, but the rest of the food was diet candy bars and such. I would love to know who decided that to make kids healthier they should offer them machines full of artificial sweeteners?

 

[naturallysweet]

Beyond the food, schools would never go for the lunch hour. People don't understand how schools today treat children as if they are widgets in a factory. Children are put in long lines to pick up their school lunches and then rushed out the doors as soon as they can. Any child who dares to eat slowly and actually chew their food is chastised. Because the same small room must service every single child in the entire building for lunch from 10:30-1:45.

Because of the Federal guidelines, schools that used to have cooks prepare food on site have switched to having food trucked in. Many districts simply can't afford to hire a staff of nutritionist to make sure that every meal meets the Federal guidelines.

We really need to get the Federal government entirely out of the school lunch business. Let state and local governments, or better yet parents in a district, come up with menus. Yes, this will mean that some children eat more French Fries and cheese burgers. But that's better than the giant bags of cheetos and candy that they are bringing now to fill up their empty bellies.

 

[vessie]

The French take their food seriously.
We flew Air France on a trip to Paris and the food was 5 times better than the junk you get on American carriers.
The French even have laws saying how bread will be made and what cannot be put in it.
Oh, and real butter croissants made with 100% real butter and not the junk most stores in the US sell.
Hell, even a Big Mac at MickeyD's on the Champs-Elysees tastes twice as good as the American versions

Their school lunch menus look great

The Air France lap blankets were just FAB to wear as a scarf (after the flight). V

 

[NC Susan]

That chef in the picture looks a bit hefty to me. Maybe too much sampling her own cooking? Yep, school lunches back in the 60's here were all made from scratch. My grandkids are in school now and everything comes in prepared and frozen. Their cooking is all done by heating prepared food in the oven.

Franchise Restaurants dont even cook now. There are factories that manufacture aluminum steam table trays oooozing with MSG that ship across country to restaurants . Your menu will still reflect a $20 per plate price tag tho. And most customers are oblivious to taste anyway

 

[Countrymouse]

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are considering legislation to provide exemptions from the lunch regulations for schools that are losing substantial revenue, though Michelle Obama has vowed to fight for her pet project “until the bitter end.”

President Obama has also promised to veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk, the Associated Press reports.

What I STILL don't get, is how an UN-ELECTED, NON-OFFICIAL, NON-LEGLISLATOR or JUDICIARY person can have ANY power over dictating to schools what must be fed to our children!

SHE isn't the President! She isn't even a lowly freshman Congresscritter. She is 'only' the First Lady, but that is NOT an elected office and DOESN'T give her legislative powers!

So how is it she gets to run off scot-free and make POLICY and GUIDELINES and LAWS for what OUR KIDS eat???

 

[Be Well]

The big problem is, this is the NORMAL way they eat at home. So, for most students, this IS "good food".

You serve most of that in the US, with the little darlings palates accustomed to Big Macs, Dr Pepper and Pizza Pockets, and they're going to dump 90% of it in the trash.

Our kids were accustomed to eating "made from scratch" meals at home, 3 meals a day when they weren't in school. They detested the school lunches... but they were in the minority.

You can't solve these problems with any level of government.

Summerthyme

That's it. The gov combined with huge corporations made the problem, they can't fix it. Re-set is the only way, which will happen via economic collapse, even if nothing else happens.

 

[Be Well]

What I STILL don't get, is how an UN-ELECTED, NON-OFFICIAL, NON-LEGLISLATOR or JUDICIARY person can have ANY power over dictating to schools what must be fed to our children!

SHE isn't the President! She isn't even a lowly freshman Congresscritter. She is 'only' the First Lady, but that is NOT an elected office and DOESN'T give her legislative powers!

So how is it she gets to run off scot-free and make POLICY and GUIDELINES and LAWS for what OUR KIDS eat???

Because the leftistpukes in charge have the gonads of everyone else in a lockbox. The handful with courage and principles are so outnumbered they can't do anything at present.